


Dawn Again, on this Vibrant and Violent Night

by myaami



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Canon Divergence, Fix-It, M/M, Memory Loss, Mystery, NaNoWriMo 2019, Spoilers For The Entire Game, The Classic Battle Between Hope and Despair, The New Battle Between Truth and Lies, Typical Canon Violence, hang in there until the very end
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-11
Updated: 2020-11-21
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:07:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 7
Words: 60,682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21816376
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/myaami/pseuds/myaami
Summary: Kaede says it best: “The mastermind threatened us in the morning, collapsed a ceiling on us at noon, and then killed one of us in the night.”Kokichi won’t say much, but there’s something unusual about his behavior and the way he hides his wrist.Shuichi doesn’t know what to say,  but he can’t stop dreaming about blood dripping on his head and two sun bursts lighting up a room.No mystery is unsolvable, but death comes again and again, and Shuichi takes up the mask of a liar and fakes it until he can convince himself it doesn’t mean a thing.And the audiencelovesit.
Relationships: Oma Kokichi & Saihara Shuichi, Oma Kokichi/Saihara Shuichi
Comments: 91
Kudos: 242
Collections: Quality Fics





	1. Episode 1: Dawn Again, on this Vibrant and Violent Night

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In general, I’m avoiding rewriting canon scenes, but when needed, I’ll abbreviate them and focus on the divergences.
> 
> I’m really excited to finally be sharing this (it was my NaNoWriMo piece last year, so I'll be posting the chapters as I edit them), and I hope you enjoy it too!

* * *

“Get out. I don’t believe it! He was my favorite character!”

**“Damn, how can he be dead already?”**

_“My poor heart, I wanted to propose to him if he won…”_

“He was known to place trust in himself above trust in others. Well. That’s what it says in his bio, anyway.”

_“What a shame! I was expecting him to really spice things up, ya know?”_

“Yeah, his talent and backstory were ripe for drama and suspicion—”

**“Hold on, hold up. What’s happening now?”**

“…”

**“…”**

_“…”_

“Oh my god…”

 _“She has_ what _now!?”_

**“What the fuck?!”**

“This is escalating too quickly!”

**“But… but, what? It’s already… what?! Worst. Show. Ever!”**

“Eeeeek now they’re fighting!”

**“Ahhhh what the hell is going on?!”**

“I feel like I’m gonna die…”

_“No, look! See? See?”_

**“This mastermind is out of control.”**

_“Let’s give her a chance… I heard she wrote the entire script herself, and you both saw the preview, right? Humanity’s last hope? Come on, that’s genius! She’ll pull it off.”_

“Still, why do the hot ones have to die first?”

**“Shut up and watch!”**

* * *

**Dawn Again, on this Vibrant and Violent Night**

**[Daily Life]**

The beginning of the end starts with a buzz in his pocket.

Actually, the vibration of the remote control is just the notification, the harbinger, if you will. A friendly alert letting Shuichi Saihara know that the end has arrived and he’s late to the party. A deadly party he never RSVP’ed to, yet is expected to attend nonetheless. From the moment Monokuma trapped them in the academy and told them to kill each other and left the ‘or else’ unspoken, this was destined to happen.

However, it hasn’t happened yet.

_But, hasn’t it?_

Shuichi blinks, and then finds himself in an unexpected situation. Question one, why is he hunched over on a classroom desk? Fortunately he doesn’t have to think hard about the answer: the library, the hidden door, the possible execution of every single one of them in less than an hour—he’s on a stakeout. His next question, why he had fallen asleep here, is also an easy one: he’s exhausted because the ceiling collapsed on him a few hours ago.

Still, that’s no excuse. He rubs his eyes and slips a hand into his pocket. _The remote is functioning fine,_ he tells himself, _as fine as it was a few minutes ago_ —and sure enough, it’s fine; the remote connected to the motion sensor in the basement is silent and still, and the tiny blinking light indicates normal operation.

Someone yawns from the desk beside his. “Did I… fall asleep?” Kaede Akamatsu, the Ultimate Pianist, her bright and colorful outfit suiting her inspirational personality. She wipes her mouth with the back of her hand. “Sorry, I didn’t expect to be this tired. But I guess that's what happens when the ceiling falls on you…”

“Don’t worry, you haven’t missed anything,” he reassures with a crack of his back.

Kaede stifles her next yawn. “After we catch the mastermind, I need a good night’s sleep. I don’t normally take naps, and especially not with that obnoxious music from Monokuma’s video.”

Normally Shuichi doesn’t either. It’s the second time in one day that he let himself be caught off guard, and the potential consequences of his most recent oversight are being cruelly depicted in Monokuma’s video. A trick, meant to be loud and distracting and repetitive. It drives at their insecurities, showing all the ways their trust can be broken, splintering what ounce of hope they might have. It’s way too cruel.

It’s also, completely silent.

“Hm? What did you say, Shuichi?”

Shuichi practically throws the desk across the room as he stumbles to his feet. “The video stopped!”

“What? When? What about the remote?” Kaede grabs her backpack, meanwhile Shuichi's already halfway out the door, saying he doesn’t know and not even bothering to check the volume of his voice, because something terrible is happening. The video is off. The remote should have vibrated. If the mastermind found out about the trap… if they avoided it and already entered the secret door…

Shuichi’s hardly processing that his foot is slipping on the bottom step of the basement, but fortunately his hands do; they come out to brace against the wall and hold his damp hat firmly in place. He wipes his hands on his pants when Kaede comes stumbling to a halt beside him, but it only serves to distribute the sweat that’s gathered on his palms. All they hear in the hallway is their breathing, when all they _should_ be hearing is the video.

Kaede steps towards the library door. “Are you ready?”

_No._

“Oh hey, you two!” Kaito Momota, the Ultimate Astronaut. Spiky purple-red hair matching the color of his torn coat, and an energetic attitude despite the circumstances. He calls out to them from the direction of the game room. “We’re in the middle of a strategy meeting to take down Monokuma. You wanna join us?”

“Kaede would certainly be a great candidate, but I’m not sure about the other one.” Tenko Chabashira, the Ultimate Aikido Master. Short hair fixed into tiny pigtails that fly everywhere when she turns up her nose at Shuichi and the other male students in the academy. Despite her feelings towards Shuichi, she at least reads the air better than Kaito. “What’s wrong?”

_The mastermind found out about our trap. We’re doomed._

_The video shut off. That can only mean one thing._

_I fell asleep while someone was very possibly being murdered._

Instead of waiting for Shuichi to select an explanation, Kaede opts for action. She pushes all three of them into the library, where the air is still and the secret bookcase is tightly shut.

Had he really missed the mastermind? The device in his pocket didn’t vibrate, but… but didn’t it? Did it get turned off by accident? Like snoozing an annoying alarm clock and falling back to sleep without realizing it?

Enough. Kaede waits beside him as anxious as he is, and Kaito and Tenko look around the room. Time to focus.

Shuichi rubs the heel of his hand into his left eye, trying to dislodge something. Dust obscuring his vision, obviously, because the sight they find in the corner of the library can’t be real. It’s impossible. In fact, Shuichi denies this very reality, because there is no existence in which the thriving camaraderie between him and the other students could be shattered so catastrophically to result in Rantaro Amami lying dead on the ground.

His mind is slow to process the world, but he watches Kaede gasp and drop to her knees next to Rantaro, torn between wanting to touch and offer comfort, but knowing he’ll never feel it. He notices how Kaito garbles his words before fleeing the library, or maybe it’s Shuichi who can’t hear properly because of the ringing in his ears, but he can hear Tenko’s screaming loud and clear. Shuichi shakes his head and backs away from the body.

 _The body._ What a strange way to phrase it. He has a body. So does Kaede, but he never thinks about her as just a body.

“… so unfortunate!” says Angie Yonaga, the Ultimate… whatever. What does it matter? It’s not like she has the power to bring Rantaro back from the dead.

No. No, he’s not dead. It’s another accident like this morning, another Exisal gone wild for no reason. If only he knew where the infirmary was, but the small first aid-kit in the school store should be enough to clean up the blood and disinfect the wound. Shuichi starts to move, but a voice booms over the loudspeaker and all thoughts of ‘what if’ are gone, leaving only the cold reality demanding the survivors gather in the library.

And gather they do, at least the able-bodied students, and like the ceiling collapsing on them before, their world is further torn apart.

* * *

**Dawn Again, on this Vibrant and Violent Night**

**[Deadly Life]**

Rantaro Amami. The Ultimate Unknown. Green hair, kind eyes, and a cool and collected demeanor determined to end this killing game. He came to the library for reasons unknown, where he was killed violently by a blow to the back of the head.

Shuichi isn’t sheltered in his line of work. He’s seen death. The case that claimed him the title of Ultimate Detective was a homicide more graphic than this.

He dry heaves once on his knees out in the hallway.

When he’s back in the library, Kaede passes him the Monokuma File. She says it contains nothing useful. No information about Rantaro’s talent, time of death, or who might have been around. Just the cause, which is frankly insulting to anyone in the room with eyes: of course it’s the bloody shotput ball lying next to the body.

Shuichi wonders how long he’s been in shock for; the blood on Rantaro’s head is nearly dry.

“So, what now?” It’s Kokichi asking, the Ultimate Supreme something. He’s asking Shuichi. Shuichi can still feel the bile in the back of his throat.

“The first thing we need to do, is stand together,” Kaede says. “This is the mastermind’s doing, not ours. The mastermind threatened us in the morning, collapsed a ceiling on us at noon, and then killed one of us in the night. They expect us to comply and play by their rules, but we won’t. We’ll investigate, yes, but only to discover the truth behind Rantaro’s murder and expose the mastermind in the process.

“Let’s start by forming groups to investigate the area and collect each other’s alibis. Not to doubt each other, but because someone might have seen something.” Kaede turns to Shuichi and Shuichi knows she will lead them to the truth, even if she has to drag it out of them. “Will you work with me a little while longer?”

Shuichi pulls his hat down over his eyes ignoring the dampness and the tickling of the fabric there. They get to work.

Kiyo, Miu, Kokichi, and Angie stay to search the library. Of the four, Miu and Angie prominently wear their injuries from the ceiling incident. Fortunately, Kokichi and Kiyo seem to have come out unscathed, like Shuichi and Kaede.

“Kirumi is obviously the most suspicious,” Miu scowls and pushes her sleeves up to her elbows. They’re dirty, stained with blood, and she winces when her hands touch the deep scratch marks. “She didn’t come to the library after the body discovery announcement, and she doesn’t have an excuse for it after the collapse. Just ‘felt sick’ or something. Sure, I didn’t want to see Maki’s hand twisted backwards like that either, but I’m not gonna go hide and cry about it like a little bitch.”

“Some stomachs are more sensitive than others,” Kiyo says. “Indeed, Maki’s wrist was a sight, but Gonta’s head wound was far worse. I have not seen him since the Monokubs removed him, but I hope they have stopped the bleeding. I expect Kirumi felt overwhelmed by her inability to tend to them. Please be a little more sensitive, Miu.”

“Aww! That’s so sweet of you to think that Miu has the capacity to be sensitive!” Kokichi says, and Shuichi can name at least one other person here who seems to be incapable of empathy.

“I-I’m plenty… s-sensitive!”

Miu becomes increasingly more sensitive, with Shuichi trying to ignore it and Kaede too embarrassed to interject, until Kokichi firmly states that he doesn’t want to hear her garbage disposal moaning anymore. “Anyway… if Kirumi is avoiding us because she _actually_ killed Rantaro, she’d only be making herself more suspicious, you know? She’s smarter than Miu. If Kirumi was the killer, she’d be here to cover her tracks.”

“Maybe it’s a double bluff!” Angie, it seems, also lacks appropriate displays of empathy. She pokes the fresh scabs on her knuckles. “Like, pretend to care for us, and then secretly kill us?”

Kiyo clicks his tongue. “You are suggesting, that in an attempt to deter suspicion, Kirumi thought so far ahead to predict our expected responses? Kehehe. Angie, I am not sure if I am pleased that you think so highly of her abilities as an Ultimate, or repulsed that you think one of us would commit premeditated murder to such a degree.” Angie frowns and touches her knuckles again.

Kaede asks where they were just before finding Rantaro. Miu explains that she, Kiyo, Tsumugi, and Kirumi were in the dining hall for dinner, and that the room hardly looked as if it was involved in a building failure. Tsumugi left to use the restroom, but was absent when the body discovery announcement went off, so Miu and Kiyo hurried to the basement together.

“Is that right?” Shuichi muses. “I thought Kirumi went back to her room after the ceiling collapsed. You just said you saw her in the dining hall at dinner.”

Miu’s mouth hangs open like Shuichi of all people just told a filthy joke. Kiyo places a delicate hand on his face in thought.

“No… I guess I didn’t see Kirumi there,” Miu says after a moment. “I think I just wanted to see her there. Any cooking would be better than that disgusting crap the Monokubs served us.” Kiyo concurs with her account.

“I was in the game room with many others,” Angie says when Kaede’s questioning turns to her. “Kaito, Tenko, Himiko, and, um…” she scrunches her face. “Oh. Poor Rantaro too.”

“And none of you left?”

“Only Rantaro, but he did not say why. Then Kaito and Tenko heard your commotion out in the hallway. What were you two doing? Dancing?”

“No. And what about you, Kokichi?” No response. “Um, Kokichi?” Nothing.

Shuichi reaches out and lightly taps his wrist, and Kokichi winces and cradles it protectively against his chest. “Whoa! Hey now, I’m very fragile. The slightest of surprises might make my little heart stop!”

“Can you tell us where you were when you heard the body discovery announcement?” Shuichi asks.

“Hm? Moi?” Kokichi purses his lips and tugs down his sleeve. “I was in my room, alone. The music was playing real loud. After it stopped, I met up with everyone and came here.”

“Who did you come with?”

“My, my, how forward! What makes you think I _came_ with anyone, Shuichi?” Miu makes a noise. Everyone ignores it. “Actually, now that I think about it…” Kokichi stalls for a suspenseful moment. “Yep, I was definitely gettin’ busy with someone!”

“Don’t do anything shameful, Atua sees all!”

“Kehehe, so love can be found even in a place like this, can it?”

“With who!? It’s not like any here’d wanna suck your di—”

“O-Okay then!” Kaede claps her hands together. “Thanks everyone for your accounts. Keep investigating the library, and we’ll meet up again in a little bit. Shuichi, let’s check on the others in the game room, okay?”

Shuichi is trained to observe. He knows what to look for. He can tell that Miu and Angie’s displays of insensitivity are a show, a barrier to protect themselves from the truth. That Kiyo’s harsh reprimands are not meant to scold, but to help the others understand that it’s okay to open up, there’s no need to hide strong emotions under the guise of indifference. Kokichi… has an insensitive side, yes, but it’s carefully measured and sifted throughout the conversation. That initial non-responsiveness wasn’t part of it. Shuichi can’t come up with a scenario where it makes sense for Kokichi not to cooperate, especially since they don’t fully understand the mastermind’s game.

 _Is this really the most important thing right now?_ It might be. Shuichi has no way of knowing who or what to prioritize, but Kaede is already out the door, and Shuichi decides to follow her because she seems to know where she’s going.

* * *

Keebo, Ryoma, and Tsumugi deliver their report on possible ways to leave the game room without going through the front. They claim it’s possible to throw a shotput out the back door, but only Gonta would be strong enough for such a feat, and his head wound has kept him resting in his room. Then they deliver their own accounts.

“I was in the dining hall,” Tsumugi says. “I did leave to use the restroom, but it was only for a few minutes.” Kaede encourages her to continue, but Tsumugi pauses, then pushes her glasses up her nose, as if to try and hide her blackeye.

“Miu told us she saw Kirumi in the dining hall, then she changed her account,” Kaede offers. “What do you remember?” Shuichi shoots Kaede a look.

Tsumugi touches her glasses again. “Oh, well yes, I saw Kirumi for a moment, but it was in the hallway, not the dining hall. Maybe Miu heard her? On my way to the restroom, Kirumi was stumbling down the corridor saying she wanted to prepare a proper dinner for everyone, but she looked awful. I encouraged her to return to her room. She could barely stand and is quite stubborn, so I escorted her.”

“As for my alibi,” Keebo says, “I was resting in my room for the afternoon and evening. When Monokuma’s motivational killing music ceased, I emerged into the commons area and met up with Tsumugi, Ryoma, and Kokichi.”

“We were surprised to see Tsumugi there,” Ryoma adds, “but she explained that she brought Kirumi back to her room. The four of us stayed there until the body discovery announcement, then we headed straight to the library. You know the rest.”

That they do. Kaede kindly thanks everyone for their accounts, and then angrily rounds on Shuichi when they emerge into the hallway and the door’s shut behind them. “What was that all about, Shuichi? Why did you glare at me when I was talking to Tsumugi? We can’t doubt the words of our friends.”

“But we can’t feed them information either, Kaede.”

It’s one of the first rules of investigation: don’t lead the witness. It offers them the opportunity to adjust the facts they present. Then again, Shuichi is the only one who would know that. Kaede is right; he can’t attribute ill intentions to anyone. They’re all trapped in the same situation after all, and everyone’s memory is a little fuzzy today, including his.

“Ah, I’m sorry,” he amends. “I just wanted to clear up the confusion with Miu’s account. You’re right, we shouldn’t suspect one another. There’s no way one of us is the killer.”

Kaede is silent as they ascend the stairs.

In the classroom they had staked out just a short while ago, they find Tenko kneeling down by the vent, while Himiko snoozes on a desk.

“Himiko wasn’t visibly injured in the ceiling collapse, but it looked like she needed a quick rest,” Tenko explains.

“Visibly injured?”

“I just mean that, it’s a lot of stress. I must have gone into shock because I can barely remember the details. I only remember that when I came to, I was in the game room with Himiko. Oh! That’s our alibi. We were there with Rantaro, Angie, and Kaito. I heard your footsteps out in the hall, Kaede, so Kaito and I went to check.” She huffs, and her little pigtails go flying again. “That useless Kaito fled the library pretty quickly after we found Rantaro, didn’t he? Mumbling something about going back to his room at a time like that… don’t let him get away with it!”

“I won’t,” Kaede says. “We’ll see him next.”

They agree not to wake Himiko since her account matches up with the others. Tenko shows them the vent, but everyone’s alibis rule out the possibility that even the smallest among their number may have been hiding inside.

“So the vent wasn’t used at all, huh,” Kaede says, and wanders into the hallway on her own. Shuichi bids Tenko farewell, and then follows Kaede to the dorms to check on Kaito and the injured students.

* * *

Despite their caged enclosure, it still affords some sense of groundedness. The moon, for example, glows soft and full. The grass and hedges look a gentle green. And in the distance, there are buildings filled with uncaring strangers. The buildings must be populated, why else would they be here, and their cage is large enough to see from that distance. The reason help does not come is due to pure indifference. Shuichi almost wishes he could go back to the simpler times when he was waking up as an amnesiac in a locker before he knew what it was like to run and hide from death and apathy.

Things were never optimal in this academy, not with their kidnapping and subsequent threatening of murder and death, but the sixteen of them had made things work for the past three days. The ceiling collapsing was truly the beginning of the end. The moment itself is hazy. All he remembers is that while an Exisal was pruning the grass in the dining hall—which was unusual with all of the students present; normally the Monokubs reserved cleaning the inside of the academy for after hours—it lost control of the arm, which rocketed into the ceiling.

Most of the students were able to take cover from the debris and cement, but the two who were severely injured were immediately retrieved by the Monokubs before the dust had literally settled. The Kubs had refused to reveal the location of the infirmary, but Monokuma assured everyone that Gonta and Maki were going to make a full recovery, and that soon they would be resting safely in their rooms. It wasn’t a murder attempt, Shuichi had already asked. But that only meant that the time limit was still in effect.

 _And even after all that, one of us still died_ , Shuichi thinks as they knock on Gonta’s door. Gonta calls for them to enter, and his bright smile is a stark contrast to the gauze wrapped around his head. Kaede gasps and rushes to his side, fussing over him despite his attempts to ease her concern. Shuichi takes a peek inside the open bathroom door. There’s a discarded jacket on the bathroom floor in a mess of dried blood, and a trash can filled with used gauze. Clean white gauze sits on the counter.

“Have you been in your room the whole time since the incident?” Kaede asks.

“Yes. Gonta wake up in bed, and the bandages had already been applied.”

“Do you need a drink or anything to eat?”

“No, thank you. Monodam brought water earlier.”

“Did he treat you okay? We were so worried when he took you away and we couldn’t follow.”

“Oh yes. Gonta has taken far worse injury when Gonta lived in the jungle and fell out of a tree!”

“Okay... Well, let me have a closer look, just in case.”

Shuichi emerges from the bathroom as Kaede is adjusting the desk lamp over Gonta’s head. The light illuminates him from the front, bright, as if the suns had risen inside of a fallen building illuminating the spreading on the ground—

“Shuichi, is there any spare gauze in the bathroom? I’m going to change the bandage.”

He nods and does as he’s asked.

When Kaede concludes that the wound has been properly cleaned, Gonta asks if Monokuma’s body discovery announcement was real. Shuichi tells him, and Gonta cries. Kaede rests a hand on his arm, and they exchange words of comfort and leave his room with a promise to escape all together.

Shuichi gently closes the door behind him. “Who’s next?”

Kaito is next, but he doesn’t let them in his room. Kaede pounds on his door. “Kaito, you’re being awfully suspicious,” she accuses.

“I’m just as confused as anyone,” Kaito says from within. “But I’m definitely not the culprit! You saw me right before we found Rantaro, remember?”

“Just open up and we can talk about this face to face!”

“No! I gotta check on a few things first.”

Shuichi tries next. “Fine, Kaito, we won’t come in. But can you tell us where you’ve been all day?”

“Yeah. Yeah, guess I can do that. After the ceiling collapsed, I rounded up our best remaining fighters, ah, no offense guys, and I said we should go to the game room for a strategy meeting. Tenko, Himiko, Rantaro, Angie, and me.”

“That checks out with what the others said,” Kaede whispers to Shuichi. “What made you come out into the basement hallway, Kaito?”

“Well, it was quiet in the game room and I heard the noise you two made coming down the stairs… wait. Huh? It was quiet? That’s weird, I don’t remember exactly when the music shut off.”

“That checks out with our own accounts, too,” Shuichi whispers back, then raises his voice to the door. “Are you willing to tell us why you ran back here immediately after we found Rantaro?”

“…Like I said, I’m testing a few things.”

“I hope you tell us soon, Kaito,” Kaede says. “We need to trust one another in order to find the truth.”

Kaito mumbles something and his voice gets softer as he moves away. Kaede throws her arms up in exasperation.

Kirumi opens her door for them, but doesn’t invite them in. “I must admit, I am a bit ashamed at the state of my room in the wake of my illness,” she says. She’s dressed in her usual uniform, but her hair is slightly out of place, and there are dark rings around her eyes.

“That’s alright, Kirumi,” Kaede reassures. “We won’t keep you for too long. Can you tell us where you were today?”

“Of course. Immediately after the incident, I rushed to my room where I became violently ill. I was beside Gonta and Maki in the dining hall, and when the Exisals pushed me aside so carelessly and snatched them away… I felt useless. What an embarrassment for someone of my station. I had failed them. It is very unbecoming, but tomorrow I expect to be in a better state of mind and body.”

“You don’t have to push yourself,” Shuichi says. “We’re all working hard to deal with this. You’ve been in your room this whole time, then?”

Kirumi flashes him a weak smile. “No. I admit I wanted to return to my usual duties before I was ready. I went to the dining hall to prepare dinner and see how well the Monokubs had cleaned up. The side door was still blocked, so I went the long way around. Tsumugi stopped me before I could go inside, and insisted that I return to my room and rest. She brought me here herself.”

“Thank you, Kirumi, we’ll leave you to rest now,” Kaede says.

“Please let me know if I can be of any additional help. I want to get to the bottom of his death as well.”

They say goodbye, and Kaede knocks on Maki’s door next. It opens immediately. “Oh! Hi Maki, can we come in? Is there anything we can do to help you feel better?”

Maki motions them inside with her good hand.

“We, um, came to see if you’re okay.”

“I’m fine,” she snaps.

“Did one of the Monokubs bandage your hand?”

“I did it myself.” She sits on the edge of her bed, holding her wrist. It’s swollen and splotchy. “However, they did bring me this brace.”

“Are you sure it’s not broken?” Kaede asks. “You might need more than a brace if that’s the case.”

“It’s not broken. I know broken. From… dealing with the kids.”

“Right…”

“I took medicine to help with the pain, so I can’t talk to you for much longer.” Even now, she struggles to keep her eyes open.

Kaede motions for Shuichi to take over. “I’ll get right to it then,” he says. “Where did you go after the ceiling collapsed?”

“I woke up here. Monokid was fussing over me. I kicked him, then he gave me the wrist splint and medicine.”

“Who have you seen since then?”

“No one, except you two. Can I ask you a question?” Shuichi nods. “Who died?”

“…Rantaro.”

Maki swings her legs onto the bed and leans back against the pillow propped against the wall. “How?”

“Blunt force to the head. With a shotput ball.”

“He probably died instantly if the killer was strong enough.” Her eyes close. “Signs of a struggle?”

“None.”

“Anything suspicious on his person?”

“Only his room key and Monopad.”

Maki’s breathing starts to slow. She adjusts her position to rest her injured hand across her lap and slip her good hand under her pillow. “Thank you for informing me. Don’t trust anyone, and close the door on your way out.”

“Feel better, Maki,” Kaede says, and they leave Maki, and the ill, and those confined, but there’s no rest for the rest of them. Monokuma calls over the loudspeaker that the trial is going to begin and that all able-bodied, well-rounded, and good-minded students must attend. There’s no answer when Kaede asks what if one of the injured students killed Rantaro. There’s no answer to why they have to do this trial in the first place, but like Kaede said before, their only option is to play along and use it to their advantage to uncover the truth about the mastermind.

Shuichi looks to Kaede. For encouragement? For confidence? But she’s balled her hands into fists and only has eyes for the door of the smaller cage that lies ahead of them, painted in blood red, a sign of the impending doom that will surely befall them so long as they remain trapped within this academy.

* * *

**[Class Trial, In Session]**

The elevator reaches the bottom and opens to a room somehow illuminated by stained glass windows despite the fact that they should be underground and that it’s nighttime. Monokuma directs everyone, save for Maki, Gonta, and Kirumi who were excused, to their assigned podiums and explains with glee the rules of the class trial.

Shuichi takes his spot. Kaito leans over to whisper to him. “Sorry about before, man. Something was on my mind, ya know?”

“A lot of things are on our minds, Kaito. Let’s just be honest with each other from now on.”

Kaito grimaces. “I deserved that, huh. Well…” he shrugs his shoulders, and Shuichi notes that Kaito changed out of the torn jacket he was wearing when they found Rantaro. “I don’t remember much of the ceiling collapse, but I guess my sleeve was caught under some rubble.” He plays with his replacement as he explains. “Lucky me I don’t wear my arm in this side. When I rolled out from under the debris, the whole sleeve tore completely off.”

“Okay.” Shuichi’s not sure where this is going.

Monokuma finishes his speech, and the Monokubs shout for the debate to begin.

“Yeah, but… when I was in my room, I was putting heavy things on my good sleeve and getting down on the ground and rolling around.”

The other students discuss how they should conduct the trial.

“Was there something unusual about the way it tore?”

“That’s exactly right! It’s like you can read my mind.” Kaito claps a hand on Shuichi’s shoulder. “You’re a pretty good detective.”

The arguments from their classmates increase in volume. Shuichi raises his voice too. “So, what did you find?”

“…is too… ”

“What?”

“I said, the tear—”

“—isn’t that right, Shuichi?” Kaede says. “Tell them what we found in Rantaro’s pocket. Why he couldn’t have been the mastermind.” And now the spotlight’s been thrown onto him and there’s no going back. The class trial has officially begun and Shuichi has no choice but to take part in revealing the truth.

* * *

The photos contribute to the confusion surrounding the case. There are five of the front door. The first is Shuichi, Kaede, Tenko and Kaito, just after Kaede pushed them into the library. The second is Angie and Himiko arriving after Tenko screamed. The third is the rest of the able-bodied students coming to join, the fourth is Kaito running out, and the fifth is Shuichi removing the camera during the investigation. The photos of the back door are of Rantaro entering the library, and Shuichi removing the camera. The photos of the bookshelf are of Rantaro opening the secret door, and another of him approaching the camera they hid. In the last one, the bookshelf is opened behind him.

This evidence suggests that Rantaro was killed earlier than they originally believed. After all, the bookshelf was already closed by the time the four of them entered the library, and Shuichi himself noted the dried blood on Rantaro’s head. The only explanation is that the motion sensor triggered and the pictures were snapped all according to plan, but the receiver in Shuichi’s pocket didn’t make a sound.

The photos of Rantaro are the most intriguing, the most damning.

“We’re one step closer to the truth, so don’t give up!”

Kaede’s words somehow ring hollow in Shuichi’s ears.

* * *

“It would have been impossible for the culprit to meet Rantaro inside the library, Ryoma. The photos show that everyone entered through the front door. Shuichi and I confirmed with Gonta, Maki, and Kirumi that they hadn’t left their rooms. Frankly, they wouldn’t have been able to do much if they had, and Shuichi and I would have noticed them coming to the basement.”

“I see. I guess the one who has a long way to go, is me.”

“Don’t worry about it. It’s better to think about each possibility anyway. We’ll get through this together. Right, Shuichi?”

Shuichi wonders what it must be like to lie to a room full of his friends.

* * *

“Not if the culprit timed their movements around the camera intervals!”

Suspicion falls on Shuichi then, for failing to relay Miu’s information to Kaede and the rest of the investigation team. Honestly, it had slipped his mind. He hadn’t considered the possibility that it could be used against him, since only he and Miu knew about the intervals. Shuichi knows it wasn’t him, but if he reveals the piece of evidence he’s been sitting on…

“You’re wrong, Kokichi. Shuichi couldn’t have been holding the motion sensor, or we wouldn’t have gotten the picture of Rantaro opening the bookcase door.”

Kaede lies for Shuichi next. “Everyone, you have to believe me! Shuichi is not the culprit! If we vote for Shuichi, we’ll be making the wrong choice. And if that happens, everyone will be executed. I definitely won’t let that happen, even if it costs me my life!”

Such powerful words coming from such a kind heart. If only there were more people like Kaede in this world. If that were the case… surely the world would fall apart.

* * *

Shuichi knows Kaede did it. She knows it too. She admits it and demands that Shuichi lay out the evidence revealing her crime for all to see.

Still.

“It doesn’t completely make sense, though,” she says just before the final vote. “I know I must have thrown the ball, but I… don’t actually remember it…”

Monokuma blames her faulty memory on her mind’s desperate attempt to make herself feel better. As a last resort, Shuichi argues that the promotional video had stopped playing while they were in the classroom together, purportedly _before_ she threw the ball that might have turned off the music, and that the dried blood requires continued discussion, but Kaede shakes her head— _stop it, that’s enough,_ she says—and everyone casts their votes.

Kaede’s feet dangle.

**[Class Trial, All Rise]**

* * *

In the wake of tragedy, nothing comes as a surprise. The moon continues to glow, the wind ruffles clothes, and feet transport the remaining souls back to their rooms. Everything functioning as it should be, as it never will again for some. Silence in their prison cage, even from the most boisterous of voices and personalities, but that too is to be expected.

Shuichi’s missing socks aren’t as much of a surprise as they are a reminder that nothing is as it seems. He sits on his bed looking down at his bare feet hoping they will tell him something about what has happened, but they’re just feet; they hold no answers.

His pocket holds a small clue: one of the missing socks, but this mystery doesn’t interest him right now. He throws the sock in the trash as if that’ll make up for the lack of rhyme or reason. Kaede was the culprit. The same person who encouraged him and gave him the strength to be a strong detective. She must have started planning the murder the moment Shuichi approached her with his plan. She must have known it had the potential to destroy her, too.

Shuichi places his hat on a shelf. It repulses him. It serves as a constant reminder of his weakness to stop the killing game, and at the same time, of his strength to fight and reveal the truth at the highest cost. There are other hats like it in his closet, and they will remain there, never to be worn. In a way, this hat is Kaede’s. He’ll keep it here in the open to watch over him and perpetually judge him.

He strips off his remaining clothes, and showers. His eyes shut out the world and the water, but all he can see is Rantaro and Kaede’s blood dripping down and flowing around him.

* * *

Shuichi falls onto his bed and into darkness. An all-consuming, pungent slime slides over his body like a second skin, surrounding him and repressing his consciousness and commonsense and reason.

But that’s how dreams work, right?

It starts with a bang. Not a physical explosion, but one of sight and sound. It blinds you in one eye, your left, while your right lingers in darkness. A repetitive vocalization accosts the silence, and before the light can break, two suns burn through it.

You use your hands as a guide. Stretched out before you, they make out an open and passable space. Something heavy slams against your back after crossing the threshold that sends you both tumbling to the ground, and then something else slides into place to block out the laughter and the screams.

There’s something in your left eye. An itch. A bit of knowledge. Something there that shouldn’t be there. Or rather… something that _isn’t_ there that should be. You ignore the heavy body and rub your eye to push through to your brain, because something is wrong with your vision: the room behind you was covered in blood. You had come to this place looking for truth, and found only death.

_Huh? Death? Is someone really dead?_

The body leaning on you becomes too heavy. It’s difficult to tell if they are breathing behind their mask, but the telltale rise and fall of their chest confirms it. You gently lay them on the ground. This person is not dead. The room behind you isn’t covered in blood. You never even came to this place. There is no truth to be found here. No death.

_Huh? Death? Is someone really dead?_

The bit of knowledge nags at your right eye, but your left eye strongly protests.

_Look. Go inside and confirm it._

_No. There’s nothing to worry about. Stay here._

The voices argue until a different one gives alternate action.

“Run!”

Your hand no longer moves to your will. It jerks away from the door and slaps you in the face, but it’s not done attacking yet; it stretches towards the sky, yanking you off the ground and then down the hallway. Of course, it’s not a mystical hand; there’s a tightness around your wrist. Pulling. Someone taking you away from Schrodinger’s bloody room, stumbling with them down the hall.

“—?” The name rolls off your lips, but you can’t hear it.

“Hush!”

The hand pulls and pulls, encouraging you up the stairs that remind you of the blood you think you just saw. What happened to it? Where are you going now?

_Where? Where?_

The figures and colors running ahead speak in urgent tones.

Pink is first. “We have to get out of here! Let’s split up!”

_…Why?_

Yellow speaks next. “Agreed, we have the best chance that way. Please be safe you three!”

_Why why why why why whywhywhywhy—_

Purple. “I’ll take him with me. Something’s not right.”

That room is a lie.

The truth lies before you.

“Do you trust me?”

The running has finally stopped. Purple has you pushed up against a wall, waiting for your answer.

“Yes.”

They snap their fingers in front of your eyes but you’ve forgotten how to blink.

“Then you’re an idiot, especially after what we just saw.” The hat comes off your head, and they brush your bangs to the side. “But we don’t have a choice, do we?” they say sadly.

You follow this person into another place, where your teeth bite down on smooth skin, where blood drips down their finger and stains your hat, mind gone, reason gone; red blood and green hair gone, and only purple to pull you forward.

Forward.

Forward.

Shuichi leaps from the bed, clutching his chest and furiously blinking his left eye to dislodge the film that repressed part of his memory.

Memory of what?

His dream, that’s all. A bizarre conclusion to an unthinkable day. His subconscious making up for everything by pretending none of it ever happened. Rantaro was never killed. If that were the case, Kaede wouldn’t have to die either. Yet the fact that the Monokubs are wishing them another good killing day is irrefutable evidence of the nightmare he now lives in.

Kaede would want him to move forward. He wishes he knew Rantaro better, but Shuichi will do what he can to honor his memory, too. He gets dressed, but the hat, he leaves on the shelf.

Shuichi steps outside his room, and there, deposited carelessly at the threshold and covered in blood, he finds his missing sock.

**Dawn Again, on this Vibrant and Violent Night**

**[To Be Continued]**

Deceased

_Rantaro, Kaede_

Surviving Members

_Kirumi, Himiko, Tenko, Kaito, Ryoma,_

_Gonta, Keebo, Tsumugi, Maki, Kiyo,_

_Miu, Angie, Shuichi, Kokichi_


	2. Episode 2.1: Bruised and Bloody Evidence of a Forgotten Exchange

* * *

“What did I say, the hot ones always die first. RIP my green-haired angel. RIP my musical goddess.”

_“I can’t believe how many were missing from the class trial. So sparse so early on.”_

“I wonder if the absentees will even make it to the next one. They might never experience the heart pounding exhilaration and blood pumping thrill of hunting down the blackened! I’d be real sad if any of those three straight up and die next.”

**“I hope they get better. I didn’t realize how many got hurt.”**

_“You mean in the ceiling collapse?”_

**“Hah. Yep.”**

“I wanna know what’s going on with the little one.”

_“Which little one? There are several.”_

“The Ultimate Little Leader.”

_“Supreme Leader.”_

**“Jeez, we’re already past the first trial. Learn their names and talents already.”**

“Kichi. Him. You saw through the Kee-Kam how he was hanging around the detective’s door this morning. What’s going on with that?”

**“I thought Kokichi was gonna cheer up Shuichi, but then he ran for it when Keebo spotted him. Very suspicious…”**

_“I almost feel bad for him. Kokichi, that is. He seemed pretty distressed when they found Rantaro. I wish we got to see more than just what the Kee-Kam shows. Maybe next time they’ll set it up Big Brother style.”_

“Yes! They’ve got great group dynamics that should be fully exploited. I love them all!”

_“Don’t get too attached, that’s what happened with Rantaro, remember?”_

“Sob…”

_“Still, I’d like to see what Shuichi can do. He’s full of potential now that Kaede committed murder while working alongside him. Personally, I think he’ll be the next to crack.”_

**“Imagine that! An actual detective committing the crime and then covering it up. Reminds me of the nurse who fucking snapped when she was taking care of her sick patients.”**

“Don’t say that! You’re making me worry. I’m gonna tell Keebo to go give him some motivation or whatever. Gotta keep everyone happy until it’s their time to kill or be killed!”

**“God, I love this show.”**

* * *

**Bruised and Bloody Evidence of a Forgotten Exchange**

**[Daily Life]**

“Shuichi, good morning.”

A _good_ morning, Keebo says. Shuichi stares down the flowers in the courtyard. His head hurts. His body is sore. The sun is blinding and indicative of a new day, but Shuichi can’t see through to the other side of his nightmare. Keebo can do it, somehow. Shuichi admires that.

_For what it’s worth._

The wisteria blow delicately in the breeze, judging him, shaking their tiny petals in admonishment. They’re right; he needs to try harder.

“Good morning Keebo. Would you like to join me for breakfast?”

“I would be happy to.” Keebo admires the conscientious flowers too, but the silence of the breaking dawn is shattered by the screaming of the bloodied sock Shuichi has tucked in his pocket.

Obviously, he has no idea where it came from. No idea what it was doing _not_ on his foot, nor who was thoughtful enough to return it in secret. Would it be too much to ask for a signed note with an explanation? For why the blood was dried and concentrated around a single spot? The only thing he can say for certain, is that it is the matching pair of the one he threw into the trash after the trial.

“Um, Shuichi? What do you have there?”

Shuichi stops fidgeting with the sock. “Ah, nothing.” He takes his hand out of his pocket. “Just… a handkerchief.”

Keebo is kind enough not to directly comment. “While I am incapable of producing tears, I have had an uncomfortable feeling in my chest since we found Rantaro.” He brings a hand to the spot, as if trying to feel where the emotions come from. “But, I believe Kaede would tell us we should move forward. And, in Rantaro’s honor, we should work hard to form bonds of trust with one another.”

The hand falls to the side, and in a voice Shuichi’s not sure is meant for him, Keebo asks, “That’s still an option for us, isn’t it?”

Shuichi wishes that was a question he could answer.

* * *

There’s no greeting when they enter the dining hall. Not that he expected it, given his own aversion to Keebo’s kindness. But the pretense of sharing a meal is a crude facsimile of the times before the ceiling collapsed and two of them died. The scene is offensive, and the actors are tired. Kaito’s hair is more lopsided than usual, as if he gave up halfway through. Himiko’s hat is rumpled, and Shuichi tries not to imagine her curled around it for comfort. Angie and Miu’s mouths are drawn tight, and even Kiyo, who looks marvelous as always, can’t pull his mask up over his bloodshot eyes. Kokichi is the only one who appears to have gotten a modicum of sleep, but his attention flickers from person to person, anxious.

Shuichi is beckoned into the kitchen by Tsumugi before he can sneak out. “Kirumi is still somewhat ill,” she says with measured enthusiasm, “so we have taken it upon ourselves to continue her good work.” She wrinkles her nose, and turns her attention back to her frying pan. “Oh dear. Perhaps you’d be better off with a plain bagel.”

“Not to worry, Tsumugi.” Ryoma steps away from the grill and tactfully nudges the trash bin in the direction of her charred eggs. “We have plenty of other options.”

Tenko nods appreciatively towards the buffet they prepared. “Help yourself, but make sure not to eat all of it under the guise of ‘you males need a lot of food because you’re still growing.’”

A utensil clattering from out in the dining hall is the first sign of life from that room. The second, is the laughter that follows. “Nishishi! Too bad no one grows when they look at you, eh, Miu?”

“Wh-What? Who’s growing?! R-Right now? Hah! So you’re in love with me already?”

“No, I said _no one_ was growing…”

Shuichi risks Tenko’s wrath and takes more food than she would probably advise. His return to the dining hall is precedented by a napkin fluttering towards Kokichi.

“How exciting, a gift from the dirty Miu!” Kokichi delicately holds the paper between his thumb and index finger. “Thanks, but I would rather eat Tsumugi’s eggs that reek of despair.” And then the napkin is sailing through the air again, but Kokichi’s aim is wild. It lands in Kiyo’s food.

“Ah, how unfortunate. I do not want this either, Miu.” Kiyo pushes his plate away, decidedly finished eating.

“See?” Kokichi says with a flourish of his fork. “You’re not as good as you told us you were.”

The napkin throwing and taunting continue until one of them runs out, but Kokichi doubles down on the latter. He purposefully taps the edge of his plate, daring Miu to use other items as ammo to keep their game going, but before Miu can grab a handful of her rice, a single, solitary grape bounces off the side of her face. Kiyo’s expression doesn’t betray a thing, but the second grape tucked away in his palm does. After a stunned silence, Miu slaps him on the back with a burst of laughter, and Angie scoots closer to them with a look of excitement.

“Shall we sit, Shuichi?” Keebo asks.

Kokichi’s head snaps towards Shuichi, his expression slipping into something cryptically blank. He ignores the food, the shouts, and only has eyes for Shuichi who’s been transfixed on the performance since he emerged from the kitchen. It’s not a challenge, that look from Kokichi. Not a dare. Nor is it an invitation to join in on the fun. One look at Shuichi, and Kokichi has him all figured out. Shuichi wishes he could say the same; all he sees is someone playing a game, but… maybe, that’s—

He blinks. Kokichi returns to the food fight. It’s gone. The whole exchange couldn’t have taken more than a second but Shuichi’s skin is buzzing.

Seated at the end of the table, is Kaito with crossed arms, and Himiko, explaining that she’s put up a barrier to protect them. Keebo inquires about her magic, and Shuichi suddenly realizes that he can only tell he’s wearing socks when he’s seated like this, not when he’s standing, and not when he’s walking. Was he sitting at any point yesterday after the collapse? With Kaede in the classroom, yes, but seeing as he found the sock this morning, she couldn’t have…

A different question, then: how did he lose the sock in the first place? Better yet, why take them off at all? He’s not like Kaito wearing those galaxy themed bedroom slippers all the time. Shoes like that are hardly conducive for all the training Kaito supposedly does, and Shuichi can’t imagine wearing his loafers without socks by choice.

He shudders. Kaito nudges his shoulder. “What’s up Shuichi? Why are you… looking at my feet?”

Shuichi was going to explain, he really was. But it’s hard to think straight when a pancake lands on your head. Kaito throws back his chair and cries retribution for getting an unexpected shot on his sidekick, while Himiko apologizes for letting the barrier slip.

Yes, it’s nearly impossible to be angry when there’s a pancake on your head and everyone in the room looks like a deer in the headlights holding food as ammo and plates as shields. It’s hard not to laugh at the absurdity of it all. It’s hard, so Shuichi throws caution to the wind the same way he throws a hard-boiled egg across the room, to the cheers and utter delight of his classmates.

* * *

It couldn’t last forever, of course. Nor was it a true escape, but it lasted longer than expected. Tsumugi was hit with a handful of rice when she stepped into the dining hall, and Tenko sought immediate retaliation by flinging the entire plate of newly prepared eggs in Kaito’s direction, to Tsumugi’s great dismay. Shuichi tried not to think about what Kirumi would say about the whole affair. He tried not to think about what her absence meant in the first place, but the arrival of the Monokubs came soon after, reminding everyone of their circumstances.

Shuichi was designated to lead the search for the locations the nonsensical prizes unlocked. ‘You’re the detective, you figure it out,’ the Monokubs said after unceremoniously dumping the items into his lap. Kaito offered to accompany him as a way of apologizing for slugging him after the trial—or maybe it was to get out of clean-up duty. It’s appreciated all the same, but Shuichi still jumped when Kaito punched his fists together in a show of enthusiasm.

He intended to ask Kaito at breakfast, but, well. Shuichi tries again after they’d cleaned themselves off—fortunately there was no syrup, though he thinks it’s slightly barbaric to enjoy a plain pancake—and had opened the pool with a magical ocarina, of all things.

“Kaito, is there something you wanted to tell me?” No, no, he’ll have to be more specific than that if Kaito’s blank expression is any gauge. “I mean, about your sleeve? Um, you said you were rolling around on the ground yesterday…?”

“Ah, just forget it.” Kaito says, scratching the back of his neck. “I was tryin’ to find answers to questions that don’t exist.”

“What kind of questions?”

“Drop it, Shuichi. It didn’t change anything. Rantaro was already dead by then, and Kaede died too.”

Some people are easy to talk to. Others… are stubborn. If a direct approach won’t work, he’ll try a roundabout one by invoking another mystery: why is someone hiding the fact that they got hurt, and why did Shuichi give them an unsanitary article of clothing. This, he can solve. For their sake. To profusely apologize, at the very least.

“I also had a wardrobe malfunction,” Shuichi confides.

“Huh?”

“My feet…”

“Is this why you were checking me out this morning?”

Shuichi catches himself before he trips into the half-filled pool. “Wh-What? Checking out?”

“I see. Yeah, I get it.” Kaito lowers his voice. “You’re self-conscious. Don’t think I didn’t notice you’re not wearing your hat today.” Shuichi had in fact thought no one noticed. “And when you saw my ripped feet, you got worried about that too.”

“Can feet actually be ripped in a muscular sense?”

“Of course! Just look at them.” Kaito removes a slipper and wiggles his toes. “See those muscles rippling through?” Shuichi is reluctant to admit that he does. “Every part of your body needs to be fit for astronaut training.”

“Right…”

“Hey, I know what we can do! Shuichi, let’s—”

A loud bang cuts him off, but the only thing moving in the room besides them is the front door vibrating in its frame.

“Great, now we gotta deal with ghosts,” Kaito grumbles. “Come on, man, let’s get back to exploring. Last thing I need is to be constantly checking my back. Damn school is creepy enough as it is.” He shoves his foot back into the slipper, and they quickly leave the pool area.

On the second floor, they find a comical reward for their exploration efforts. Angie offers to take the gaudy item inside the oversized treasure chest and gather everyone in the gymnasium while Shuichi and Kaito finish their search. When they discover the Ultimate Child Caregiver’s Lab, Kaito suggests they go inside. He gets as far as jiggling the knob before the door is thrust open and immediately shut.

“Hey, Maki! It’s good to see you finally out and about! You missed a good time at breakfast.” Kaito reconsiders putting a hand on her shoulder in welcome. “Er, we thought there might be some supplies in your lab we could all use.”

“There is nothing inside this lab for anyone’s use.”

“Really? Not even bandages or a first aid kit?” Shuichi asks.

“No.”

“Well now, that’s weeiiird!” Kokichi pops into their field of vision and points aggressively at Maki. “Don’t they teach first aid to caregivers? Aren’t you a team player? Your Ultimate Talent could save our lives, you know!”

“Just ignore him, Maki.” Kaito steps in front of Kokichi as if object permanence isn’t a thing. “The most important thing is that you’re feeling better.”

Kokichi jumps up and down to look over Kaito’s shoulder. “That’s not. The most. Important. Thing.” He gives up and side steps Kaito. “Unless you think her wrist is more important than our lives! I really question your priorities, Kaito.”

“Kokichi, have you discovered anything useful in your search?”

Kokichi makes an exaggerated face as if he only just noticed Shuichi standing there, and Shuichi wonders if he imagined the whole incident between the two of them at breakfast. It had only lasted a second, after all.

“Ohhh. Are your detective instincts _finally_ tingling?” Kokichi teases, then looks down at his hand. “Nah, I haven’t found anything unusual. Just a few idiots and one really smelly fool.”

Kaito bristles. “Hey, don’t call me an idiot!”

Kokichi casually steps backwards down the hall with his hands clasped behind his back. “How do you know I wasn’t calling _you_ the smelly fool?”

“Bah, that’s basically the same thing,” Kaito argues, slowly advancing.

“Actually, there’s a major difference if you stopped to think about it! But we all know you’re not the brains of this operation. You let Shuichi do all the heavy lifting and ride his stylish coattails! It’s fine. No one wants to ride your obnoxious coat, anyway.”

“Get back here and be a team player!”

“Punching him won’t solve anything.” Maki says, after they run off. “Violence never does.”

Shuichi follows the laughter and shouting all the way out of the academy. Kaito is swearing under his breath when Shuichi catches up. By then, Kokichi is long gone.

* * *

Kaito balks at the suggestion that they explore the curiously named Kumasutra Hotel. Shuichi’s not entirely sure what to expect either, and now's probably not the best time to find out whatever might be waiting for them. He’ll come back another day to investigate on his own. And hopefully, without a tail…

“Kokichi, are you following us?”

Kokichi peeks out from behind a machine that barely concealed him, hands up in surrender. “Aw man. I’ve been found out!”

“Seriously, can you get lost?” Kaito groans. “Me and my sidekick are tryin’ to conduct an important investigation, here.”

“Could’ve fooled me, coming to the slot machines like this.” Kokichi rubs his wrist and walks around them in a wide circle, attention drifting between Shuichi and Kaito. “And you don’t own Shuichi, he’s my friend too. What if I wanna play with him?”

“ _Friend_? Have you ever spoken two words to him?”

“Have _you_ ever considered that he might want to play a game other than _sidekick_?”

Their voices fade and are completely cut off by the time Shuichi steps outside the casino. _Everyone has a way of coping,_ he reminds himself. Theirs, he didn’t want to deal with anymore.

Kaito eventually catches up. “Wait up, side—ah, buddy. What was that all about? Feeling sick?”

Shuichi belatedly recognizes that avoidance is his. “Come on Kaito, let’s head to the gym and see if we can learn more about that item we found.”

* * *

One by one, the injured crew recover. In addition to Maki, Kirumi is also present at the gymnasium meetup. Gonta is still absent, however. Tsumugi too, but she must have gone to keep watch over him after breakfast.

When they’ve all gathered, Angie explains what she learned from Monokuma: the item is called a flashback light. It can supposedly restore their lost memories, but it is nothing more than an absurd wish. No one believes it, and Miu explains how the science is just as far-fetched as the concept. There’s no need for discussion after that.

Shuichi gives a voice to their collective consent. “If everyone is against it, then—”

“Alright, it’s decided. Let’s use it!”

“Tsk. Open your ears space cadet,” Kokichi says. “We just got done explaining why we're _not_ going to use it.”

Kaito looks every single one of them in the eyes before continuing. “Listen up! You’re all being too cautious. Right now, we’re the underdogs. You guys are right that this comes from Monokuma, but then, wouldn’t it be better to know what he wants us to? We gotta have all the cards on the table, the good and the bad!”

“Nice speech, Kaito, A-plus for effort,” Kokichi scoffs. “But weren’t you listening? We already decided—”

“I think… I think Kaito’s right,” Himiko says. “We should probably watch it. Just in case.”

“That is true,” Kirumi agrees. “If we do not know what is in store for us, then we cannot be prepared to counter it.”

The momentum that was driving them forward crashes and suddenly the reverse track is more appealing. Maki, Keebo, even Miu all consent to use the flashback light. Kokichi, for once, is speechless. Kaito slaps Shuichi on the back. “You agree with me too, right?”

_No. It’s the same mindset as what got Kaede and Rantaro killed. We’re blindly following the trail someone else laid out for us._

The argument gets stuck in his throat.

The flashback light blinds him and bores a hole into his brain. It’s painful, contradictory. Illuminating. It isn’t enough to restore all his forgotten memories, but it gives him hope. Rantaro was onto something, but died before he could reveal anything more about the Ultimate Hunt. Despite their hesitancy, they were right to watch. It’s impossible for their memories to be manipulated. Forgetting is one thing, but remembering? Surely that’s another. Now that they understand their past, more than ever, they need to work together.

“It should be obvious that we shouldn’t cooperate with each other anymore,” Kokichi says. He gestures to the gymnasium at large and goes on in a lighthearted tone. “Look where that’s gotten us! Even though we threw away our talents and our memories, it wasn’t enough. Welp, let’s just give up and let them come for us!”

“Stop messing around, man!”

“But I’m not messing around.” The smile vanishes. “If we work together, Monokuma will punish us. That’s why he gave us the time limit motive. To prevent us from creating a united front. It’s everyone for themselves from here on out.” He winks, and condescension drips down his lashes. “Try not to get stabbed in the back.” Kaito really does try to punch him this time, but Kokichi skirts out of the gymnasium before that can happen.

Kokichi is wrong. Trust is the only key to their survival, not isolation and suspicion. Trust in each other, trust in themselves. But inexplicable irritating mysteries are everywhere, the sock, the ceiling, the Ultimate Hunt and this entire Academy life; if Shuichi can’t trust his own mind, then what hope does he have to escape this place alive?

* * *

That night, Shuichi dreams of things that are not his. An island and an ocean instead of an academy, where the waves are piano keys and each stroke of his arms resonates and rings out against the desolation.

Colorful fish follow alongside him in the sea. Circling. Waiting.

“Is he sleeping?” one fish breathes.

“Yeah, he’s sleeping. He’s out light a like.”

“You mean… out like a light.”

Kaede’s voice cuts through the noise, singing across the ocean of crooked music. “Do you know where you’re going?”

_No, but I’m trying, Kaede! I’m trying to find the path of truth._

A different fish says, “Who cares? Just hurry up and leave the present so we can get outta here.”

“D-Don’t rush me… Geez, it’s dark in here… I can’t tell which is which…”

_No, I know which is which. I didn’t mix up the killers. It was you._ _It was—_

The sound of a door banging open rings out and light from the hallway illuminates the horizon. It’s as bright as heaven above, if such a place existed, but obviously not, because Kaede and Rantaro are dead and the rest of them are choking on despair.

The light changes into something pervasive and slippery. It covers his body and drags him down into nothingness.

Your eye starts to act up again. It doesn’t make sense.

Sense? What even makes sense anymore. Through one eye you see murder and horror. Through the other, a clean and empty room.

“Do you trust me?”

Purple is leaning against you, holding you upright because you can’t seem to do it on your own. They’re so close you can feel their breath on your face.

“Yes.”

They snap their fingers.

“Then you’re an idiot, especially after what we just saw.” With care, they remove your hat. They brush your bangs to the side and focus on your unblinking eyes. “But we don’t have a choice, do we?” they say sadly.

They want to play a game.

You refuse.

“They’re coming,” they say.

“Who?” you ask.

“We need to leave something behind,” they answer instead.

If only you could leave. You’ve been trying to leave ever since you saw blood filling the room and the screams seared themselves into your mind. But you’re not in this alone. Purple takes you by the hand, pulling you forward…

They ask if you trust them.

You nod.

They mimic the motion. “Good. I know you’re having trouble remembering for some reason, but we need to be smart about this. They’re probably going to make us do it all again.”

You say you don’t want to play any more games.

“We have no choice.”

They squeeze your hand, and encourage you to follow them forward…

“You’re an idiot,” they tell you.

Idiot or not, they pull you into a room that doesn’t reek of blood and death and lies.

“Did you hear me? You have to solve this mystery,” they reiterate.

Forward and forward into another place with a new objective—

—Shuichi wakes violently, but the message he received fades as he lies paralyzed in bed and slowly slips back to sleep.

* * *

“We cannot exchange them,” Keebo says. “This is likely another motive similar to the first time limit.”

“Oh Keeboy, I’m disappointed,” Kokichi drawls from his spot against the wall. “Well, it’s not like I’d expect you to understand, so let me explain: Monokuma will punish us if we _don’t_ exchange them. That’s why we should cooperate!”

After the morning announcement brought him out of an restless sleep, Shuichi found a multi-colored device sitting innocuously on his desk. Curious, he watched.

He shouldn’t have watched. It’s essentially blackmail for Kaito that Shuichi got by mistake. Better to be ignorant for this. Monokuma appeared and gave it a name: a motive video. Shuichi rushed to the dining hall with his video pad, and found everyone else similarly distressed.

“Make up your mind, Kokichi!” Tenko shouts. “Yesterday you said we _shouldn’t_ cooperate!”

“I share Keebo’s sentiment,” Kiyo agrees. “We must not share the videos we received with anyone.”

_Is_ _this really okay?_

Kokichi apparently does not think so. “Come onnnn, don’t you wanna get to know everyone a little better? A friendly show and tell? Air our dirty little secrets?”

“We should trust in one another! That’s what Atua told me.”

“Yeah, that’s what we decided yesterday. Stop screwing around!”

Kokichi isn’t dissuaded. “Or maybe, we’ll find a clue to the mastermind!”

“Are you still convinced there is a mastermind?” Kirumi asks. “After Kaede, I was beginning to suspect that it was merely an unfortunate misunderstanding.”

“Make no mistake. Someone is definitely controlling Monokuma.”

“I see.”

Kokichi pushes off the wall and strides towards the center of the room. “So let’s stop all this bickering and have a party already! We can sit in the gym in a big old circle with snacks and popcorn and talk about the good old days.”

This is nothing like the flashback light discussion yesterday. Kokichi is absolutely relentless.

“Please stop!” Keebo shouts. “We should not be entertaining this line of questioning!”

“I disagree,” Ryoma says, curtly. “There is value in watching together. It might show us… our reason to live.”

“You would rather side with Kokichi?” Maki asks.

“Hey, don’t make fun of Ryoma just cause he’s got more common sense than a robot! Come on, guys, let’s watch right now!”

It goes nowhere but around. Around and around, accusations intensifying and deviating further away from the problem at hand.

Shuichi stands up. No one notices. He wants to sit back down. Instead, he clears his throat.

“Oh? Have something to add, Mr. Detective?”

His left eye itches and his mouth goes dry. But unlike when he was under the spotlight at the trial grounds damning Kaede for what she had already done, here, he might be able to chart a course to prevent them from ever going there again. Shuichi wonders why Kokichi was the only one in the room to notice him.

He takes a deep breath. “We need to be cautious of every opportunity presented to us. Yesterday, we concluded that we cannot remember what is not ours. That’s why we used the flashback light.” He pauses and scratches his eye. “Yes, we want to know what Monokuma has in store for us. Of course we do, but it should be on our terms. We shouldn’t share these videos in the way Kokichi wants to. But we shouldn’t ignore them either. We need to be proactive. Turn them in. Right now, and we’ll destroy them. That way, we won’t be tempted to watch. We won’t be tempted to act on a possible lie.”

Unfortunately, there’s no way to guarantee no one already watched their video as he did. There’s nothing he can do about it, only trust. His stomach churns. He hopes that if anyone else realizes this, they don’t say anything either.

If they do, they don’t. They discuss the merits of his plan, and find it acceptable.

“Hah! What do you say to that, Kokichi?” Kaito gloats. “No one wants to do what you said, not even Shuichi, so don’t go off on your own doing whatever you want!”

Kokichi shrugs and claims he’s been outmaneuvered by Shuichi’s cheesy speech. He calmly leaves the dining hall to retrieve his video.

“That was fucking weird,” Miu comments, and follows him to make sure he doesn’t do anything weirder. Those who didn’t bring their video pads file out to retrieve them as well. Kirumi returns with not only hers, but Tsumugi’s and Gonta’s as well. She asks Ryoma for help clearing away the breakfast dishes. Neither say anything to Shuichi as they pass.

 _This is the best course of action_ , he reminds himself.

Kokichi turns in his video and hangs around to make sure everyone else does the same. He doesn’t seem interested in engaging in conversation, and at some point, he takes off. Angie and Keebo remain in the dining hall, engrossed in conversation about faith and what guides them forward every day. They ask Shuichi the same question.

 _The truth, mostly_ _,_ is his response.

He gathers the videos into a bag, and heads towards the exit. A whispered conversation from the kitchen catches his ear.

“…would have confirmed there is no reason.”

“Yes. This might be our only way out. A sacrifice—”

Shuichi rounds the corner into the kitchen and Kirumi freezes.

“O-Oh, Shuichi,” she stammers, and fails to form words to assure him.

“Ryoma. Kirumi,” he says loudly. “We cannot give up. Rantaro paid the ultimate price for our fracture, and Kaede was Monokuma’s pawn in that. We know better than to trust anything Monokuma gives us. That’s why we’re turning in our videos and cooperating in not cooperating with him.”

Angie and Keebo are drawn to the kitchen by his voice.

“Your lives are precious” Keebo says. “A beautiful gift that you and only you can experience and control.”

Angie takes their hands and swings them back and forth. “We don’t need to see those videos. You have many people who care about you. It’s all of us!”

The corners of Ryoma’s eyes crinkle when he smiles. Kirumi blinks away her tears, and hides her trembling hand in the folds of her skirt.

* * *

Some people are easy to talk to. Others… require mental preparation. Asking Miu to disassemble the videos is the best course of action, but Shuichi isn’t ready to bow down and kiss her feet just yet. Or ever again, really.

His detour after breakfast takes him around the academy grounds, walking through the dense forest with no discernable path. A perfectly flat piece of stone nestled in the tall grass strikes him as suspicious. He gets closer. The letters engraved upon its face are cold under his fingertips. Obviously a message from Monokuma; a small and purposeful clue to cling to. Another mystery to explore. A way to keep them busy. But it’s just another motive, no matter how curious.

He commits it to memory anyway and sits beside the stone, stacking the video pads into a pile on top of it. Can they ever learn about their enemy if they don’t take advantage of what they give? Maybe there really is a clue to their identity hidden in these. Maybe Monokuma slipped up in preparing them, somehow. Maybe they’re real afterall.

“Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do, Shuichi.”

Shuichi stops stacking. “If I remember correctly, you were the one who wanted to exchange them. According to that logic, I should watch.”

“Ah, but I would _never_ go against the group!” Kokichi says, almost wistfully. He crouches down, and leans the video pads against each other as if building a house of cards. “You forgot about that.”

“Kokichi, did you…”

“Did I… what, Shuichi?”

_Did you intend for us to go against your words all along? Did you prefer this outcome where we all work together in unified opposition?_

“Um. Thank you for cooperating.”

The house collapses. “Thank you? Weren’t you there? I didn’t get my way at all! I was overruled by your persuasive logic and had no choice but to cooperate or else Kaito would try and punch me. Again.”

_Did you know what you were doing at breakfast yesterday when you started the food fight to lift everyone’s spirits?_

Shuichi returns the videos to the bag. “Anyway, I’m going to see if Miu can take these apart. There might be something inside for us to learn about where or how they were made.”

“You’re so positive now, Shuichi. I bet you’ll solve all the mysteries in no time, Mr. Camembert! But as the Ultimate Supreme Leader, I can tell when someone is painting a target on themselves. And you.” Kokichi points a finger gun straight at Shuichi’s heart. He shoots. “Are doing just that.”

Shuichi absentmindedly rubs his hand over the spot. “We’re all stronger now. I don’t think you have to worry about that again.”

“Sure hope not.” Kokichi declines Shuichi’s invitation to join.

* * *

Miu’s lab is awkward. Not the space itself, but the reaction Shuichi receives when he opens the door. It’s not that these people don’t belong here, they’re free to go wherever they want of course, but all four of them immediately clammed up mid-sentence, as if they were just talking smack about Shuichi before he walked in. He breaks the silence, as they seem unable to. “I came to ask Miu about the video pads… Something wrong?”

Kaito is the first to recover. “Nothing man, just some bullshit.” He shrugs and pushes out the door, followed by a flustered Tsumugi.

“Potential is a scary thing, isn’t it?” Miu presses her fingers against her arms. “It’s what drove Kaede to kill. Because Rantaro had the potential to be the mastermind. Does that mean she always had it? Does that mean, we all have it too?”

“No,” Kiyo says, determined, and he removes Miu’s hands from her injuries. “Kaede was pushed to the edge in an unfair manner. Monokuma knew how to break her, and devised a situation to do just that. No more. We will never betray one another again.”

The tension seeps from her shoulders. She crosses her arms with a tired sigh. “Yeah. Yeah, you’re right. Forget that crap. She’s just scared, right? You know, you’re not so bad. Kiyo.” She rounds on Shuichi, hands on her hips. “Now you. Ready to beg again?”

Kiyo lifts an eyebrow and Shuichi stutters despite his preparation. They stay as Miu carefully sorts through the parts, taking care not to trigger the Monokubs’ arrival. In the end, she doesn’t learn anything about the origin of the videos, but she does succeed in popping off the screens and fusing the motherboards, ruining this particular motive.

* * *

Shuichi doesn’t want to dream tonight. Dreams should offer an escape from reality, not a vivid distortion of it. Though the specifics of what’s been coming for him each night are hazy, the uncomfortable itches and phantom sensations are enough to make him wander the halls of the academy rather than return to his room at the end of the day.

He stops outside the Ultimate Pianist’s Lab but doesn’t dare enter. He’s not sure he would be welcome with how things have turned out. He missed the signs from Kaede and was naive to accept Monokuma’s first motive as fact when he should have been planning a way to counter it that didn’t involve playing right into the hands of their captors. Destroying the videos was a start. He hopes Kaede would be proud.

The sounds from the upper levels are curious, considering how close it is to the nighttime announcement. By the time he reaches its origin at the Ultimate Entomologist’s lab, Shuichi’s heart is pounding and his hands are trembling on the doorknob because there are multiple people screaming inside this room.

The door swings open and shuts behind him, and Shuichi promptly closes his gaping mouth to block unwelcome visitors, for the room is swarming with bugs of all shapes and sizes, flying, buzzling, crawling, and in the center of it all, are Himiko and Tenko being chased by Gonta and Kokichi. Shuichi presses himself flat against the wall to make himself unobservable in this hell he’s haphazardly stumbled into, but the trick doesn’t work on the bugs. A few colorful ones flutter and flap their delicate gossamer wings around his face.

Gossamer? Colorful?

He looks at the room again.

Yes, Himiko is making loud noises with her mouth, but she’s also smiling and cradling her hat which is housing several butterflies. Yes, Tenko is running and waving her hands around, but she’s also laughing and trying to catch a bug on her finger. And then there’s Gonta, who is carrying Kokichi on his back in piggy-back fashion so he can reach up to the bugs that prefer to hide amongst the ceiling lights.

Hell? Perhaps not, but he doesn’t have a chance to sort it out; across the room, Gonta kneels to let Kokichi down, who immediately grabs a handful of flowers and tries to help Tenko coax a butterfly into her hairpiece. Gonta skips towards Shuichi with the excitement of… well, a butterfly frolicking in a garden.

“Shuichi! Have you come to play too?” He pats Shuichi on the back and he travels forward a few unsteady steps. “Gonta so happy! Kokichi saw Gonta earlier today, and said he would prepare a surprise!”

“Your head is better?” Is all Shuichi can say.

Gonta lightly taps his bandage. “Yes. Kirumi and Tsumugi have taken very good care. Kokichi too. He invited Tenko and Himiko to have fun tonight!”

All Shuichi can do is ask questions. “Kokichi did that?”

“Yes! Oh, you don’t look so good, Shuichi. Stay here with us and the bugs, and you will feel better in no time!”

“Gonta, Gonta!” Himiko rushes to his side, barely sparing Shuichi a glance. “I wanna see the biggest one you have!” Gonta tells Shuichi to enjoy himself— _is that possible?_ —and brings Himiko and Tenko to a cage as large as them. Himiko hands Tenko her butterfly filled hat and contemplates crawling into the cage with the big bug and Shuichi stops watching. He needs to sit. He leans back against the wall and starts sliding down until Kokichi greets him at eye-level.

Shuichi pauses mid-slide. “Umm…”

“Welcome to my world!” Kokichi says, briefly spreading his arms wide, attracting a few butterflies in the process. “That is, the world at my height. It’s pretty nice down here isn’t it? I bet that position is uncomfortable, Shuichi, but who am I to judge!”

Shuichi doesn’t bother moving from his wall squat. He asks the obvious question.

Kokichi gives the obvious answer. “We’re playing with bugs of course, what does it look like? Wait. Don’t tell me… you thought a murder was taking place? Gasp! But to be _honest_ ,” he drops his voice conspiratorially. “When I told Gonta we should do this, he wanted to let out all of the bugs. I convinced him only to play with the pretty ones. Aren’t I so nice?”

Shuichi asks another obvious question.

“There’s no reason for it. No need to be suspicious of me, it’s just some good old fashion bonding! You said so yourself, we’re cooperating in our defection, so we might as well get along.” Kokichi rubs his wrist and keeps smiling, until he’s not. “What are you looking at, Shuichi,” he deadpans.

“Ah, sorry.” Bugs aside, seriously setting them aside, it’s not that Shuichi is suspicious of Kokichi’s motives. Or maybe he is, but that’s not what’s throwing him off at this particular moment in time. “It looks like your wrist is bleeding,” he says.

Kokichi follows his gaze towards the small, fresh blood stain spreading on the inside of his wrist through his otherwise pristine white shirt. “So it is!” he chirps. Shuichi puts a hand on his face. Kokichi puts his behind his head. The standoff begins.

It doesn’t last long.

“I have some questions for you,” Shuichi says.

“Oh, so it’s going to be an interrogation, is it? A little ‘good cop, bad cop,’ eh?”

Shuichi grimaces, but pushes ahead. “It’s just a question, and I’d like a yes or no answer.”

“Are you trying to oppress me and my opinions?”

“That’s not it. You’re an excellent deflector, Kokichi, and I’d like simple answers to simple questions.”

“Why, it’s about time you noticed something useful about me!”

Shuichi finally stands to use his full height as an advantage when he knows it’s not. He holds out a hand and Kokichi looks at it. Eventually, he gives his left.

“This isn’t how I imagined a marriage proposal, you know,” Kokichi says, coy. “I mean, I guess the butterflies are a nice touch and those three can be our groomsmen, but aren’t you supposed to get down on one knee? You haven’t even said you like me yet.”

Shuichi tightens his grip on Kokichi’s wrist and lunges for his right, the one that is bleeding, but Kokichi manages to twist away while shouting for Gonta to help foil Shuichi’s wicked kidnapping plot. Kokichi’s out the door in a flash and Gonta only lets Shuichi pass when he explains that they’re playing tag. Then, for the second time in as many days, Shuichi follows a laughing Kokichi down the halls of the academy.

* * *

It’s midnight, probably, and the answers he seeks are literally running away. Shuichi resigns himself to the fact that he’s not going to find them tonight.

There’s a desk in the hall. It popped up like a mirage, offering solace to his sore feet and exhausted body, but instead, Maki offers him a curt nod. Shuichi is pretty sure Maki wasn’t in that desk when he first spotted it. She must have rushed out of her lab when she heard his footsteps. Or else he’s hallucinating.

Maki leans back into the seat and removes her brace, then begins massaging her wrist. For someone who puts up a tough attitude, she seems so fragile now. Shuichi’s fingers could completely wrap around her wrist to make the bruises she endured in the ceiling collapse.

When her attention turns towards him, Shuichi knows for certain it’s not a hallucination. “Maki, should you really be… I mean, I’m glad you don’t need the brace anymore?” It comes out a question.

“The wrist is almost entirely healed,” she answers. “I’m testing where it hurts so I know what I can and can’t do.”

“And you’ve dealt with sprained wrists before? From taking care of kids?” he asks, hesitantly.

Her wrist pops. Shuichi winces in her stead. “You would be surprised at the things people are capable of.”

He decides to leave it at that. He shouldn’t bother her anymore. Probably. “You prefer to sleep here instead of your room?”

“Funny. Kokichi asked the same thing.”

“So he stopped by recently, did he.” Of course he did.

“You’re my second visitor tonight. Let me give you some advice, Shuichi.” She straightens in her desk. “I’ve met people like Kokichi before. They understand what motivates you and what drives you. They make you want them. Make you _need_ them. All so they can break you. Don’t get roped into his schemes. As of now, I don’t have a problem with you. But if I find out you’re coordinating in an attempt to gain access to my lab? I’ll kill you both. Good night, Shuichi.”

He departs on wobbly legs, thinking about what drives people to do anything in the first place. Selfishness. Curiosity. Altruism. Everyone has hidden motives. But here in this academy? In this group of young adults? They don’t have nearly enough experience to understand and manipulate in the way Maki is describing. No. Certainly not.

Shuichi returns to the dorms where his bedroom cries out to him, but he resists more on a hunch than anything else. Sure enough, after a few minutes of loitering on the girls’ side of the commons area, he’s rewarded with Kokichi emerging from Maki’s room. Shuichi holds a finger to his lips and tips his head towards the courtyard.

It’s a longshot asking—no— _telling_ Kokichi to do anything. In the days since they’ve been at the academy, Kokichi has disregarded empathy and given the middle finger to decorum, yet here they are, one following the other out the door and taking a seat under the metal bounds of what has become their very small world.

“We meet again, my fair detective! What is this, like the eighth time in just two days? If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were running into me on purpose.”

“It’s the ninth,” Shuichi corrects. “Don’t discount the time you spied on me and Kaito after we unlocked the pool.”

“So you _are_ noticing me! Sharp. I like that in a snack.”

The world is quiet without their speech. No other sounds echoing this late at night except their breathing. Shuichi’s not in the mood to fill that silence with lies. “I know you know.”

“Oh? Whatever do you mean?” Kokichi says, looking immensely pleased for someone claiming ignorance.

“Let’s make a trade. I’ll trade you a secret for a lie. Your secret, for my lie.”

“The detective has a dark side! Tell me more.”

“Obviously, I won’t tell Maki you broke into her room looking for who knows what. That’s my lie. In exchange…” Shuichi extracts the bloody sock he’s kept in his pocket for the past two days and lays it on the grass between them.

Kokichi nudges it with his shoe. “That’s gross, Shuichi.”

“That’s the secret, Kokichi.”

This close, Shuichi can watch. The way the muscles twitch in the corner of Kokichi’s eyes, how the lines around his mouth stretch and shift, subtle, all working in a coordinated effort to exhaustively search through a list of potential masks given the audience and the situation. It’s fast, and it’s fascinating. Would Shuichi have even noticed the care and purpose Kokichi acted with if Kokichi hadn’t first singled him out at breakfast?

A persona is selected and fixed in place. “Fine, fine. I’ll tell you everything…” Kokichi fiddles with his shirt, his scarf. Looks down at the sock and takes a deep breath. “After the ceiling collapsed, I found it wrapped around a bruise and cut on my wrist.”

“And?” Shuichi encourages.

“And…” The mask changes, purposefully. “The end!”

“No, not ‘the end.’ You knew who to return the sock to because…?”

“It has your name in it, stupid. No, of course it doesn’t. What are we, in preschool?” He smacks Shuichi’s arm, then quickly sobers up. “When you were throwing up on your knees after we found Rantaro. I noticed you were missing them. And unlike me, you usually wear socks.”

_Oh._

“Hey Shuichi, can I ask a question too?” Shuichi agrees. It’s not like he can stop Kokichi, anyway. “How did you know I knew? I could have been following you around cause I like you oh so much. What was the clue that made your deductive leap?”

“You kept making smelly cheese jokes at me,” he says, nose wrinkled. “I can only hope the sock didn’t smell that bad when you were wearing it…” Kokichi momentarily fills the silence of the world with laughter. It’s short lived, but it’s different. It’s nice. Shuichi smiles too. “So, I must have given you my sock after the ceiling collapse, but I don’t remember. I’m really sorry for that, by the way. But you obviously don’t remember either, otherwise you would have known it was mine right away.”

“Pretty weird, the way our memories are all fuzzy, isn’t it.”

“I think it’s the same as what happened to Kaede. She admitted to setting up her contraption and throwing the shotput, but she blocked out the memory until the very end.”

“Hmm. Do you really think that’s everything?” Kokichi leans back on his arms and looks up into the expanse of stars as if expecting them to answer.

“There’s no other explanation that the facts allow for.” Shuichi looks at Kokichi instead of the sky, and the way the sleeves ride up his arms. “If you’re still bleeding, I doubt you’ve taken care of that properly,” he points out. “I know it’s late, but I’m going to take you to the school store. There’s a first aid kit there. The infirmary would be better, but since we don’t know where that is, this’ll have to do.”

Kokichi looks confused. “I don’t understand,” he confirms.

“Let me clean whatever wound you have under there so it doesn’t get worse. I want to look at that bruise you mentioned too. I’ll put on a bandage, and then we can talk more about this. Okay?”

Kokichi’s quiet for a moment. Longer than a moment. Then his eyes sweep down from the night towards Shuichi, and Shuichi’s cheeks grow warm despite the coolness of the night. He needs to do something. Anything, because Kokichi’s inscrutable analysis is slowly hypnotizing him and pulling him under and into something else entirely.

 _Stand up._ Good, he can still move. _Do something else._ Shuichi offers Kokichi a hand up because he’s still staring, just like the other morning when he knew Shuichi was onto his ploy to sow momentary discord for the sake of a greater harmony.

Kokichi reaches for him.

That expression at breakfast wasn’t a mask. Shuichi’s been watching. _Nine times_ , and Kokichi’s done the same.

Their hands touch and it's not a lie; Shuichi is literally seeing stars. His legs give out as Kokichi heaves himself up with more force than is needed and Shuichi falls back on his ass as the sky and Kokichi bask in his naivety.

“Nishishi! Man, you totally _fell_ for it! And after all of that, I thought you were finally starting to get me. Too bad. Thanks for the fun tonight, Shuichi. Let’s catch up another time, m’kay?”

Some people are easy to talk to. Others…

He should have known it would turn out like this. Tricked and thoroughly fooled until the very end. Honestly, why did he expect anything different? Did he think he was special because he gave Kokichi the sock off his foot and they made eye contact a few times throughout the day? It was a game, nothing more, and one Kokichi seems to have grown bored of.

It’s too much. The grass that offers rest to his weary body offers no consolation to offset Kokichi’s retreating laughter. Shuichi is left again with the silence of the world, and the lies that fill it.


	3. Episode 2.2: Bruised and Bloody Evidence of a Forgotten Exchange

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you everyone for your support on the first two chapters! I’m really proud of the way this story has evolved from the first draft, and the way it’s helped to improve and focus my writing, so when I see that others are enjoying it too, it’s just really nice and encouraging <3 <3

* * *

A moment of peace was all Shuichi wanted today. Of course, peace and _quiet_ was out of the question given his conversational partner, but would it be asking too much for a structured and logical discussion meant to unravel the mystery of the missing sock?

As it turns out, yes; like all things as of late, that is asking for entirely too much.

“Hey, Shuichi. What if the cage around the academy is meant to keep something _out_ , instead of keep us in? Like, maybe being here is actually protecting us from the Ultimate Hunt, but we’re not supposed to know where we are so our memories were wiped? Oooh, or maybe the cage is saving us from a zombie apocalypse! Zombies can’t enter cages without being invited, you know. Or, was that vampires?”

It began in the dining hall, not too long ago. Himiko announced that her inaugural magic show would take place later that day, just before the nighttime. Kokichi was the first to jump out of his seat volunteering his help, but Shuichi stood up too, and glared at Kokichi long enough that even _Kaito_ noticed something was going on. With no other opportunities for Kokichi to run except for literally doing so—which Shuichi prepared for by blocking one exit with a chair and the other with his body—he reluctantly followed Shuichi to the restroom down the hall.

Reluctant, until they stepped inside and closed the door, at which point Kokichi hopped onto the sink and happily directed the conversation towards anything but what they started the night before.

“I don’t mean to sound insensitive—don’t look so surprised! I have feelings too, you know—but doesn’t it seem a little empty around here? Since the ceiling collapse, we haven’t had a single meal all together. Maaan, things are boring. Sure hope something interesting happens tonight at Himiko’s magic show.”

The first-aid kit Shuichi procured from the school store is small, but contains the essentials. He finds the antiseptic and cotton balls, and approaches the sink to examine Kokichi. He’s hardly surprised to find his path blocked by Kokichi’s swinging feet.

“You know, Shuichi. I don’t feel comfortable exposing myself here in the public bathroom. What? To you it’s just a wrist, but to me, that’s like, like exposing my well-turned calf or my porcelain neck! Why do you think I cover up all the time, cause I like sweating in all this polyester? Look, it’s part fashion, part sensibility.”

In a way, Kokichi’s constant chattering serves as another kind of peace, though certainly not the quiet variety, reminiscent of some fabled normalcy they used to have.

Shuichi also recognizes it for what it really is. He concedes in order to get things moving in the right direction. “Fine. My room or yours?” he asks. “Or would you prefer somewhere else private?”

Kokichi’s legs stop. The corner of his lip twitches. “What other private location do you have in mind, Shuichi?” His voice is controlled and low, mostly, but there’s a small hitch; an anxious anticipation.

Shuichi didn’t have anything in mind. Really. After falling asleep on the grass last night and waking up to the sprinklers in the morning, Shuichi trudged back to his room to change. After that, he walked around the grounds exploring the places he hadn’t visited yet.

Yes, his mind was only thinking back to the places he explored this morning. He was certainly not trying to get back at Kokichi by playing his game.

“The Kumasutra Hotel,” Shuichi says.

Kokichi doesn’t blink. Doesn’t even seem surprised by Shuichi’s forwadness and the implications thereof. He keeps a consistent expression, maintaining eye contact which is just about level given Kokichi’s position on the sink, watching, as if this is all par for the course in a conversation between the two of them. What gives him away, though, is his quick intake of breath before he speaks. “Damn. I like you a lot more than I thought.”

If Shuichi still had his hat to hide under, he would. At the same time…

“Let’s go all the way, Kokichi. Show me your wrists.”

There’s a tipping point, apparently, at which even Kokichi can’t hold onto his act anymore. He’s suddenly doubled over, clutching his sides and gasping for air, as if nothing more amusing had ever happened to him, and in a way, that’s true. Shuichi, making a pass at Kokichi—pretending to, of course. Just pretending—with god awful jokes in the middle of a killing game? No way.

It becomes funnier and funnier, and spurred on by Kokichi’s laughter, Shuichi falls to it himself.

“Haha, did I really just say that?”

“You sure did! Can’t believe you said it with a straight face, too. Color me impressed, Shuichi.” Kokichi wipes the corner of his eyes with a satisfying sigh. “Your room is fine. Lead the way!” He hops off the sink, and for the first time in what feels like an eternity, something is finally going Shuichi’s way.

Once in his room, Shuichi instructs Kokichi to sit on the edge of the bed and roll up his sleeve to the elbow. The cut on the wrist, Shuichi was expecting. The rest… well. Kokichi _had_ said it was bruised, but he left out a few details.

“I see the gears turning in that pretty little head of yours,” Kokichi says. “Tell me your theories.”

“The cut,” Shuichi begins, “there’s only one. Central, on the inside of your wrist. It’s not too wide, but it’s deep. Might have been from the ceiling collapse, but the fact that there's only one cut is suspicious given the nature of falling debris.”

“You don’t say… go on.”

Shuichi kneels and takes Kokichi’s wrist, turning and examining it from different angles. “Two bruises.” He runs his fingers over the dark spots. “Possibly deliberately placed because they’re in the same position on either side of the cut. Too big for average fingers. Gonta’s, maybe, but it’s unlikely for anyone to grab with only two fingers, especially in fight or flight mode. You’d expect to see marks from the whole hand.” He looks up. “No other bruises or cuts on your body?” Shuichi asks.

“None,” Kokichi shrugs. “You’re welcome to search me yourself.”

There it is again, that little bit of anticipation, encouragement; a mix of nonchalant and daring, blending into something that is peculiarly evocative and uniquely Kokichi.

“Won’t you tell me the grand theories your mind is spinning?” Kokichi asks.

“These bruises… they look like hickeys.”

“Yes!” Kokichi exclaims with a snap of his fingers. “That’s exactly right! Now you understand why I said I was getting busy when you asked for alibis for Rantaro’s death.”

“You also said you weren’t with anyone…”

“Only after which, I amended my statement, if you recall.”

“So, you’re saying you made them yourself?”

“Love yourself first, right?”

“And then… and then, what, you bit yourself, too?”

“…bit?”

Shuichi realizes he's still holding Kokichi’s arm. “Yes. It’s obviously a cut made with teeth. See the slight unevenness here? How it broke the skin?”

But Kokichi’s not looking. He doesn’t seem interested in his wrist anymore. “Are you outing yourself, Shuichi?”

“Huh?”

“The sock was yours, wasn’t it? And if I’m to believe your deduction, doesn’t it seem strange that someone _besides_ you would bite and suck on my arm, and then _you_ would offer your sock?”

Kokichi turns his hand over, resting it on top of Shuichi’s forearm. He pushes up Shuichi’s sleeve and traces a pattern along the skin over the same spot where Shuichi may have marked Kokichi.

“Say you did do this. Bite me, and then kiss me, for lack of a better word. When did you do it? After the ceiling collapsed?” His touch becomes lighter, more absentminded, circling Shuichi’s arm in the same way his thoughts wander around the questions and endless explanations. “Was it during the time we don’t remember? Wouldn’t someone else have noticed? Wouldn’t they have brought it up after?”

“Uhh…i-it might be more trauma. We could… ask around?”

Shuichi’s mumbled response draws a long blink from Kokichi, as if he had forgotten Shuichi was there at all.

“I’ll say this, Shuichi,” Kokichi says with a frown. “If you’re going to give me another article of clothing, I’ll only accept one thing from you from now on. And it’s not going to be another sock.” Despite their earlier teasing, these words hold no particular meaning. Their only purpose is to fill the space with sound. Kokichi releases Shuichi’s arm and pokes the first aid kit. “You gonna finish?”

Shuichi disinfects the wound. Twice, because he still can’t believe that he had offered his worn sock as a bandage.

Kokichi admires Shuichi’s handiwork with a roll of his wrist. “I think that’s enough for today.”

“Really? I thought we were just getting started…”

“Nope! I’m tired.” Kokichi opens his mouth wide. “See? That was a yawn.”

“Kokichi, can’t you—”

“I cannot, is my response to whatever it is you’re gonna say.” And then Kokichi slips out of the room, leaving Shuichi abruptly with his silence, but not at all with his peace.

* * *

For the rest of the day, Shuichi conducts his own investigation into oddities and memories from the ceiling collapse. He doesn’t learn much.

“You would think I’d remember a piece of debris punching me in the eye!” says Tsumugi. “But I don’t. I guess I blacked out.”

“I fell on my wrist trying to dodge the ceiling. That’s all.” Maki explains.

“Gonta was completely caught off guard and woke up in bedroom. Sorry, Shuichi. Gonta no can be more helpful.”

“I escaped without a scratch on me. It was obviously magic,” Himiko says. Shuichi tries to ask Angie about her knuckles, but Tenko offers him an ultimatum: help with the magic show, or leave. He leaves, but not before offering Keebo an empathetic look when he’s scolded for loitering with Shuichi.

Kirumi and Ryoma, he can’t find. Kaito, Kiyo, and Kokichi are arguing in the casino, and Shuichi turns right around, having already learnt that lesson.

He finds Miu in the warehouse. “Your scratches look pretty deep,” he says, looking at her arms. She’s kept her sleeves rolled up since the incident. “And somewhat irregular, too.”

“Of course they’re fucking irregular, the goddamn ceiling fell on me! Sorry I didn’t ask it to crumble neatly because you’ve got a complex.”

“It’s irregular in that it’s _regular_ ,” Shuichi emphasizes. “See? On both arms you have several straight streaks.”

Miu shrugs away. “Whatever. I don’t like to think about it. Makes me feel funny.” She closes her eyes. “I almost remember running up, then down the hall, but I woke up outside. The fastest way from the dining hall outside isn’t through the building. It’s out the patio door.”

“That room was a disaster,” Shuichi says, also remembering a hallway. “The door was probably blocked, so we went around.”

“Well… I also remember something purple.”

“Purple? Are you sure you don’t mean red? That might have been Gonta’s blood.”

“N-No, no. Not red. I think… purple, and maybe dark blue or black, or something.”

Strangely, Shuichi also remembers purple. Purple and… pink, and… yellow, and blood, and blood, and the suns…

“H-Hey, you don’t look so good. Can you leave now? I don’t want you vomiting on the goods, you know,” Miu says halfheartedly.

Shuichi doesn’t get sick, but he does return to his room and lay down waiting for his head to stop spinning and his eye to stop throbbing. He needs a pen. He doesn’t have the strength to go looking. Instead, he tries to curate a mental list of the facts, but ends up repeating words and names and theories until it all blurs together and semantic satiation makes “purple” feel like an affront to his lips. A doorbell finally brings him out of it.

“I’m here to collect you for the magic show, Shuichi!” Too loud. “Oh, I’m sorry,” Tsumugi whispers, considerate of his wince. “I didn’t realize you were napping. Although…” She takes a step back, appraising him. “It’s kind of obvious, isn’t it?” Tsumugi pats her hair, surely in reference to Shuichi’s bedhead. That’s part of why he started wearing the hat in the first place, but since that’s no longer him, and there’s no time for a shower, he runs his fingers through it a few times, and then follows Tsumugi to the gymnasium.

“Can I tell you something, Shuichi? I found something that I wanted to share with everyone.” crosses her arms. “I was going to bring it to the magic show, but it was stolen.”

Ah, so that’s what Kokichi has been up to today.

“I told him to bring it tonight like I had planned to do,” she goes on, “but I don’t know if he’ll listen.”

“What did he take?”

Tsumugi barely holds back a grimace. “Another flashback light. We decided that they aren’t Monokuma’s motives, right? That he can’t influence our memories? Oh, but I understand why you wanted everyone to destroy the Kubzpads, Shuichi. Because recording videos of our family and loved ones is easy to fake.”

“So you watched the video you received too?” A fearful look creeps across Tsumugi’s face, and Shuichi is quick to reassure her. “Don’t worry, you don’t have to tell me whose. I watched the one I got too. Monokuma only told us they were motives, not that they were blackmail, but that’s how you knew, right?”

“It’s just plain awful, isn’t it.”

There’s no way their memories could be altered with lies. Using a memory altering device to escape the Ultimate Hunt is one thing. That tore out a whole chunk of their past. Forgetting due to trauma is another; it happened to Kaede.

Forgetting that Shuichi Saihara bit Kokichi Oma and gave him two hickeys on his wrist? Shuichi would have definitely remembered if he did that. Kokichi would certainly never let him forget it. Maybe it got bundled up with trauma after all.

Kaito had said that the more they knew, the better they could prepare. But where do they draw the line between learning the truth and trusting Monokuma?

“We can vote on it, like we did last time,” Shuichi finally says. “We can’t allow ourselves to splinter. If just one person refuses to use the flashback light, none of us should. Presenting a strong, united front is key to not playing into Monokuma’s hands.”

Tsumugi smiles and seems happier than she’s been all evening.

* * *

The gymnasium is filled with moderate excitement and jittery nervousness when they arrive. Angie tells them that not only is Himiko going to escape from a tank of water, but that if she fails, piranhas will devour her.

“I’m worried that Kokichi’s not here,” Tsumugi sighs absentmindedly during their talk of Himiko’s plan.

“More worried than Himiko being murdered in front of our eyes if she doesn’t escape from the tank on time?” Tenko asks, too incredulous to be furious.

“A-Ah! No, it’s just, I mean…” Tsumugi looks anxiously at Shuichi.

“If he doesn’t bring it tonight, I’ll convince him to bring it to breakfast tomorrow,” Shuichi offers. “Let’s give our support to Himiko now, okay?”

She purses her lips, but agrees.

They wait until Angie says they have to begin if they don’t want to get caught out in the nighttime. Kokichi, Kaito, Maki, Kirumi, and Ryoma are absent.

Himiko fearlessly ascends the platform and steps right into the water tank. When the timer hits ten seconds and Himiko still hasn’t emerged, Shuichi jumps onto the stage—Gonta had started to run, but his head wound made him a little too slow, but Shuichi’s no faster; the piranhas fall, and something else sinks to the bottom of the tank. They swarm around the pool, but cease their efforts when they realize they can’t digest whatever lies within.

The room erupts into chaos, and confusion turns to celebration when Himiko appears safe, hands on her hips in victory. She’s surrounded by questions and hugs and immense relief, and everyone agrees to leave the clean up until the morning. They file out of the gym in high spirits, oblivious to the object laying at the bottom of the tank, except for Shuichi; he watches as it fizzles and pops, circuits fried, never to reveal the memories that were contained within.

* * *

With the magic show behind them and the flashback light unused and destroyed, the days pass, and the fourteen stranded students begin to recapture that elusive normalcy they never thought was possible again.

Miu and Angie face off in a sculpting competition, welding versus chisel, while Keebo and Kiyo provide their prompts and unbiased judgment. Gonta hosts another butterfly party, and Ryoma starts up daily tennis matches. They play doubles with Himiko and Tenko, though Tsumugi often subs in when Himiko gets tired. Kirumi has devoted her time to collaborative cooking, working closely with each student to prepare a meal together that they can share with everyone else. Maki finally concedes to Kaito and speaks to Miu about installing a biometric lock on her lab. There’s resistance at first, with the most vocal being Kokichi. He says it’s unfair to horde items, but Maki counters by telling them to treat her lab the same as the other undiscovered rooms. Kokichi stops pushing. Shuichi almost wishes he hadn’t, but he didn’t want to argue against Kokichi. Besides, the added security makes Maki comfortable enough to finally leave the second floor for extended amounts of time.

Shuichi himself has taken to rising before the morning announcement and jogging around the academy grounds. In the forest around the back is where he found the tiny pebbles he has clinking together in his pocket. He picked a handful, about nine or ten, smooth and round with a flat surface area. When he arrives at the dining hall after his run, he lays the pebbles on the table and takes the bottle of black nail polish from Kokichi.

“Don’t you love arts and crafts, Shuichi?” Kokichi says by way of greeting. “I think Kaede will like this.” He shows off his paper crane folded from sheet music, complete with a tiny painted face. “Photocopies, of course. I wouldn’t dare ruin the original pages.” He places the crane in front of Kaede’s portrait on the nearby desk.

Well. They _almost_ recapture normalcy.

The shrine was set up the morning after the magic show. It started out simple, a classroom desk with two wire picture frames and portraits that look as if they were taken from a camera. Shuichi can’t be one hundred percent certain they weren’t; Rantaro’s kindness and Kaede’s sweetness are near-perfect candid representations.

With each passing day, more items were added. For Rantaro, thin blades of grass were braided and fashioned into rings, and for Kaede, thick pieces accompanied with instructions on how to hold it between your thumbs and blow to make music. Tsumugi brought the nail polish and worked with Gonta to paint a scene of bugs onto strips of paper that Angie helped loop and chain across the ceiling. Shuichi plans to paint his pebbles with music notes that he’ll arrange into the first bar of _Clare du Lune_.

“Any idea who started it?” Kokichi asks, already knowing the answer.

 _Someone with a kind heart despite having a perpetually bad attitude,_ Shuichi thinks.

“How’s the wrist healing?” he says instead.

“Look Shuichi, the next time you want to suck on me, pick a less conspicuous place. I wear a scarf for a reason, you know.” Shuichi accidently paints his fingers. “But because you went for my wrist, I have to deal with Kaito making fun of me when I stick my whole sleeve in the sink to wash the dishes. I mean, I can’t roll it up, or he’ll see!”

“Just tell him a lie,” Shuichi suggests, reaching for the napkins. “Aren’t you made of them?”

Kokichi brightens. “Better yet… why not tell him the truth? It’s not like he’d believe me anyway.” Kokichi rests his chin on his hand, and taps his fingers against his cheek. “What do you think? Would you be able to share our embarrassing truth? Or would you deny me, Shuichi, and lie?”

Shuichi likes to think he’s getting better at keeping up with Kokichi. It’s times like this, when he’s reminded that he’s not.

“I-I… ah, uhhm?”

Kokichi flashes him a wide grin, and then he’s back to his cranes. Keebo comes by while Shuichi is cleaning off the nailpolish and keeping his mouth firmly shut so as not to further embarrass himself.

“It’s not much,” Keebo says of the picture in his hand, “but this is the best group shot I could find from my memory banks.” He places it delicately in front of the shrine. The photo captures everyone, save for the photographer himself, on what must have been the first or second day of their imprisonment. Despite that, their resilience was strong. Everyone is smiling.

It’s a beautiful picture.

But…

“What’s that on Tenko’s hair?” Shuichi points to a small, white blob hovering at the tip of her pigtail brushing the top of her shoulder.

“It is likely a sunspot,” says Keebo. “See how there is a second one on the other side of her?” Shuichi observes the symmetry, and notices yet another unusual shape, below her hair. A brown loop, of sorts. Several, actually.

“Two identical sunspots?” Shuichi muses. “And these loops… are they some kind of sculpture in the background? They don’t look familiar… destroyed in the collapse?”

“I apologize that I don’t have a higher resolution for you to inspect,” Keebo says. “I hope I did not cause you too much concern.”

 _Remember who you’re talking to,_ Shuichi reprimands himself. _You’re not solving a mystery with Kokichi. Don’t be insensitive._

“No, I’m sorry Keebo,” Shuichi says. “Thank you for reviewing your memory to find and print this picture. We appreciate the ones you already printed of Rantaro and Kaede.”

Keebo looks at Kokichi, who mimes zipping his lips. “Yes, I did print them at Kokichi’s request,” Keebo says. “And despite the fact that he insulted me while asking, I did agree that it was a good idea.”

Kokichi flicks a paper crane his way. “Keebo’s special. He’s not like a normal human! He doesn’t have real eyes, but this is probably the only thing his robot body will ever be good for. Appreciate our gratitude!”

Keebo doesn’t interpret Kokichi’s words as gratitude, so Shuichi adds his own, more sincere thanks as well.

The three of them spend a moment more admiring the picture of people who had no idea what was ahead of them; a snapshot frozen in time from before the ceiling collapsed and their world crumbled with it.

* * *

Shuichi invites them for a walk after breakfast, but Kokichi said he had enough ‘touchy-feely interspecies interactions’ for the day, as he so eloquently put it. That leaves Shuichi and Keebo to meander through the courtyard, not unlike the morning after the trial when Shuichi couldn’t see through to the other side, and Keebo showed him it was possible. And not only possible. Attainable, too.

Things are different this time. Keebo hasn’t spoken a word since they stepped outside.

“Something on your mind, Keebo?”

“Oh, I apologize. I did not mean to ruin the mood on such a lovely day.” Keebo looks up from his feet, and into the sky. “Although, every day is lovely, isn’t it? That doesn’t make things any better… We just have to be strong, right?”

Shuichi’s foot pauses for a moment mid-step before touching down and continuing forward.

“Um, but I know strength is not a physical attribute in this context,” Keebo continues. “The saying refers to putting up a strong front.”

Shuichi looks at Keebo. Keebo is focused on the ground again.

“Yet… what does that do to the part of us that remains covered and buried beneath?”

Shuichi stops walking.

“Keebo. This line of thinking… it’s not…” His fingernails dig into his palms. He knows what this is, what it might lead to. “Let me start again,” he says, after a deep breath. “Every one of us copes in different ways, and we all show it differently. Try not to focus on how you appear to the rest of us. If you pretend like nothing is wrong when it really is, then you endanger yourself. On the other hand, if you’re someone who puts on a great show of sadness but are secretly fine with things, well, I’d want to know that too.”

“Shuichi…”

“When I realized what Kaede had done, I froze up in the class trial. You remember, right? I stayed silent because I couldn’t let you see her how I did. But Kaede knew. Not only the truth, but that I was avoiding it. And rather than paint me as the murderer, she helped me understand that my display of altruism was selfish. It wasn’t going to save anyone. Not even her.

“None of us are perfect. We all have our fears and insecurities, our worries and our passions, but we have to stop lying to ourselves. The truth is we need each other, all of us, no matter if it seems like that’s not the case. We need each other in order to survive.” Keebo is staring by the time Shuichi finishes. “Oh, I, um. I didn’t mean to go on and lecture you like that.”

Keebo firmly shakes his head. “No. I assure you, Shuichi, if my eyes had functional tear ducts, my emotional state would be much easier to decipher.” He extends his hand and squeezes hard when Shuichi holds tight in return. “Thank you. Thank you for seeing me as a real human. And as a true friend.”

This time, when the sun shines down and the wisteria wave in the breeze, Shuichi knows that they are on his side.

Their walk continues, lighter now, and more open, until they pass by the pool, with it’s propped doors and noise coming from within. When they take a peek inside, Angie and Miu grab Keebo’s arms and drag him to a set of chairs where Kiyo is on standby with a deck of cards. Beside them, Gonta is blowing up beach balls and inner tubes, Kirumi is stacking snacks and drinks on a table, and Maki seems to be showing Kaito the proper form for a dive— not that they can actually test it, with the pool being only half filled.

“Shuichi!” Kokichi slaps his palm against the ‘no running’ sign as he runs past. “It was awful without you,” he says, coming to a halt. “Why did you abandon me this morning? Promise never to leave me again!”

“Um, weren’t you the one who didn’t want to join me in the first place?”

“Well, okay, no need to remind me. A walk with Keebo and Shuichi? Yuck.” Kokichi pushes him into a pool chair and drops into another, crossing his ankles on Shuichi’s foot rest. “Anyway. After you left, I had to listen to Tsumugi lecture me again about stealing. Even though we all agreed that watching another flashlight was a bad idea, she’s still super pissed.” He folds his arms behind his head. “Well, we agreed after the fact, but, ya know.”

“I’m still not condoning your actions, Kokichi,” Shuichi says, knowing that’s not entirely true. “But all the same, I’m glad you did it,” he admits.

“Ah hah! I’m becoming such a good influence on you, Shuichi. Yes. You may call me, Master.”

“What I _really_ want to know is how you got the flashback light into the tank in the first place. It wasn’t there at the start of Himiko’s act.”

“Shhhh. A guy’s gotta have his secrets.”

Before Shuichi can explain his wild theory involving a ropeway and an innertube, Kirumi makes her way over to them. “Please let me know what you need in order to relax,” she offers. “As this is our first pool party, I wish to make the experience more enjoyable for all.”

“Wouldn’t you prefer to join us rather than wait on us?”

“It’s fine, it’s fine,” Kokichi dismisses. “It’s her specialty, right? Fetch me some soda! And a pair of funky sunglasses.”

“Kokichi…”

“Please do not worry, it is my pleasure,” Kirumi smiles. “I’m afraid I would feel quite restless if I sat down with nothing to do.”

Despite her insistence that she has things under control, Shuichi helps her tend to the others. Mostly Kokichi. Entirely Kokichi, actually.

Shuichi brings him his Panta, then is asked to retrieve a pair of slippers from the locker room. After that, it’s a warm towel—“do you call this warm, Shuichi? Try again, servant!”—and then quite reluctantly, Shuichi fetches a tray of grapes from the kitchen. When Kokichi opens his mouth for Shuichi to feed him, Shuichi throws the not-warm-enough towel into Kokichi’s face, and storms off to help Kirumi restock the snacks.

“I’ve always admired your skill, Kirumi, but I admire your resilience as well.”

She chuckles politely behind her hand. “Some are easier than others,” she concedes. “However, all it takes is patience to understand that we are all in the same situation. I believe this pool party is a sign of that, wouldn’t you agree?”

She’s absolutely right. Looking around the room, Shuichi sees what has grown in a place once barren in the wake of the death of two of their friends.

“When we get out of here, let’s have another party like this,” Shuichi says. “All fourteen of us, including the ones who aren’t here in this room right now, and the ones who aren’t here in this world anymore. We’ll honor their memory by staying friends. Together we’ll make a worthy future, and the people who locked us away will realize they made a mistake when they toyed with us.”

Something clicks in that moment, and Shuichi realizes the power behind his words.

_When we get out of here._

Not _just_ survive, which implies a bitter struggle stacked against their odds. Not even escape, which gives no indication of what is waiting beyond. But the concrete aspect of ‘when’ followed by an event they can do. _Will_ do. Together, with everyone.

Kirumi’s hands hover above a bowl of chips.

“Kirumi? Do you need to rest? Your shoulders are shaking.”

She controls her face in a careful way and clears her throat. “Yes, perhaps I should rest for a moment. Thank you for your assistance, Shuichi.”

By the time Shuichi finishes with the food and returns to his chair, Kokichi is sporting a pair of purple rimmed sunglasses. The tinting hides his eyes, but Shuichi imagines that his fond expression is a result of coming to the same conclusion about their resilience as Shuichi had.

“I never thought a supreme leader would be interested in a simple pool party,” Shuichi teases.

“Little do you know, people watching is a required skill if you’re in position.” He takes a quick sip of his drink. “Don’t you watch people as a detective?”

“Of course. That’s how I can tell you’re having a good time.”

Kokichi opens his mouth with a breath, then closes it with a huff. Retortless, but seemingly satisfied, he nudges his sunglasses up the bridge of his nose with a finger, and tips his drink to Shuichi.

The sight burns bright into his mind, the same way two suns had burned into it once before.

“That reminds me…” Shuichi starts.

“You were thinking about filling up the pool by funneling water out from Ryoma’s lab too, huh?”

“What?”

“No? Just me?”

“That’s… that’s not a bad idea, Kokichi.”

“Yes, yes, I don’t need you to state the obvious. That’s a lie. You can obviously always keep doing that.”

“A-Anyway, I was thinking about your mark. We haven’t talked about it in a few days, but it’s definitely something I’ve seen before.” Shuichi shakes his head to dislodge something from his eye. It won’t come out. The sensation hasn’t been this bad in so long that Shuichi had almost forgotten.

No, he let himself forget. That was a mistake. It comes for him now.

“Oh?” Curious, Kokichi peers over the top of his glasses, as Shuichi leans towards him, reaching for his face.

“It’s…” Shuichi’s other hand finds the chair, full weight down to stay grounded as the world spins around him. “… a pair… of…” He removes Kokichi’s sunglasses, and the image is clear even as his words are slurring: complete and utter brightness, with a shadow standing in the middle. The shadow wears glasses, and Shuichi loses consciousness.

* * *

It’s silent. And in that silence, an unbearable sound. The absence of sound is loud, after all. Yet through the piercing whine, there’s a voice, just there, calling out to you.

 _Speak up!_ You want to shout, but they’d never hear you anyway; your body sways from side to side, an endless rocking on turbulent water. No one could hear anything above this constant crashing.

Abruptly, the movement stops, and you are lowered down; down, and into the sea itself. It’s a miracle you can still breathe.

The silence continues to scream.

* * *

You no longer know what your body feels like. All you know is darkness.

There’s a shadow, deeper than the black that surrounds and engulfs the entire world. Or, maybe, it’s a light, strong enough to pierce through.

_Who are you?_

It comes closer. Closer, until your view is completely occluded by this mysterious and powerful source, and something soft tickles what might have once been your face.

The light whispers: “I trust you.”

* * *

“Do you trust me?”

“Yes.”

The snap of their fingers always catches you off guard, even though you know it’s coming. You’ve done this before.

“Then you’re an idiot, especially after what we just saw. But we don’t have a choice, do we?”

Momentarily, you can see it reflected in their eyes; the suns that have followed you for so long, but you know it’s not Purple who betrayed you. They are the one who finally opened your eyes, and for that, you are thankful.

Purple takes off your hat, and pulls you forward into a room that doesn’t reek of blood and death; forward through space, until time finally resumes.

“You like this hat, right?”

You nod.

They slice open the underside with a knife.

“This is what I know,” they say. “Now you. What do you know, what can you remember? I only know _what_ , broadly speaking. But you saw who did it, didn’t you? Show me.”

Your right eye saw everything. Your left eye didn’t see a thing, except for the lights that blinded you, illuminating the pool of blood that spread across the floor while screams of mourning and cries of fresh chaos followed you after your escape into the hallway.

“Your wrist,” you say. They comply.

The wrist, you bring to your lips and suck on a tender spot. You make two bruises like that, side by side. Two dark circles. You bite down hard on the space in between, breaking the skin to draw blood and form a bridge.

Purple laughs through the pain and gently strokes your head as you sob. They stick a finger in their blood and scribble on the underside of your hat. It’s placed back on your head, and you feel the warm blood and something else tickling your head.

You wonder what the bloody message says.

You wonder why it matters.

At Purple’s behest, you give them your sock to wrap around what you did to them. The other sock, you put in your pocket.

“You have to solve this mystery when we wake up.”

 _We’re already awake_ , you want to say. “I wish this was a dream,” you say instead.

They rest their hand on yours. It trembles. “It’s not. But with this, we’ll end the killing game.”

The door to your hiding spot bursts open. The one you trust shouts “traitor!” and then someone else walks into the room and blinds you with a light in both your eyes this time, and you—

—dry heave over the edge of the bed, and grasp the truth for a fleeting moment before it slips away.

Shuichi’s throat burns. His fingers shake, but they come away clean when he runs them through his hair. A check of the mouth reveals that no, there’s no blood. Not even the metallic taste lingering on his tongue. Why would he expect otherwise; why is he doing this again? His left eye throbs.

He wriggles out of his cocoon—soft; must be bedsheets—which draws a bark of laughter from somewhere beyond Shuichi’s line of sight.

“Welcome back, Shuichi!” The voice moves into his peripheral.

“Ah, Kaito.” Shuichi blinks. “K-Kaito? What are you doing here?”

“My bad, my bad. You probably don’t remember. You passed out at the pool party. Been asleep here in your room ever since. That was two days ago.”

“Two days?!”

“Yeah, it was pretty scary, man. Kokichi went crazy and demanded that Monokuma tell us if you had been murdered. Was different from when he got that weird look at the class trial. Still can’t figure out if it’s because he was desperate for the game to continue, or if it’s because…

“Well, anyway. Monokuma refused to say, so Kokichi punted Monosuke into the pool! That riled Monokuma up, but Kokichi claimed that the rules only prohibit violence against the _headmaster_ , not his offspring. After that, we brought you here and took turns watching. Tsumugi offered to help since she took care of the others before, but Kokichi refused her. Didn’t let her in even once.” Kaito’s face pinches together. “What’s going on with you two anyway.”

Shuichi’s head is pounding. “What do you mean? With who?”

“Kokichi. He’s been… screening your visitors.”

“In all honesty, why Kokichi does anything is beyond me.” Kaito grunts in acknowledgment. “What else have I missed?”

Kaito explains how Gonta offered to carry Shuichi to his room, but Kokichi flat out rejected him too. Keebo volunteered next, and was met with the same reaction. Kokichi ordered Kaito and Kiyo to take Shuichi, after which Kokichi set up a rotation for who was allowed to enter. And thus, two days passed.

But that’s not all. The morning after Shuichi’s collapse, more pieces of the Monokubs’ junk appeared in the dining hall. Everyone was immediately on guard, but also very aware of the possibility that they might finally find the infirmary in the unopened areas.

“It’s good you woke up in time,” Kaito finishes. “Something’s goin’ on tonight. Some ceremony.”

Shuichi agrees to accompany Kaito for dinner, where he says Shuichi can catch up with the others. If he wants to learn about the ceremony, however, he’ll have to ask Kiyo.

Kiyo isn’t the only person Shuichi wants to talk with tonight. There’s someone else who seems to be acutely aware of the truth behind one of their many mysteries.

* * *

Only four other students have gathered for dinner when Kaito brings Shuichi to the dining hall. Keebo ushers Shuichi into a chair, and Tsumugi grabs him a plate from the kitchen.

“We were really worried about you, Shuichi!” Tsumugi says. “Kokichi wouldn’t let us see you.”

“Not like I’d want to watch you sleep,” Miu assures. “B-But, if you wanted to watch me sleep, m-maybe we could work it out…”

“Regardless,” Keebo cuts in, “we are thankful for the good work of Kaito, Maki, and the rest in taking care of you.”

Maki shrugs. “It’s fine. You asked about me when I sprained my wrist. It’s only fair I return the favor.”

“We’ve got the whole gang assembled again!” Kaito shouts. His enthusiasm is short lived. “Now you can put a stop to all that crap Kiyo’s on about.”

“You mentioned that earlier,” Shuichi says. “Some kind of ceremony?”

Kaito doesn’t elaborate, so Maki takes the lead. “Monokuma presented another motive while you were asleep,” she explains. “Not a flashback light, since he knows we’ll destroy them. It’s a book and a ridiculous promise.”

“He said we can raise the dead,” Tsumugi adds. “He called the book the Necronomicon. Said it has the power to bring someone who died during the game back to life.” Shuichi momentarily forgets how to breathe. “That means, Rantaro. Or…”

His ears go numb.

“He _said_ that, yeah, but it’s a bunch of bullshit!” Miu slams her hands down. “Flashlights that can make you remember? That in and of itself is a stretch. But this? Kiyo should know better. Angie too.” She runs her hands along her arms in frustration. I can’t believe they fell for that crap.”

“It’s okay,” Keebo says. “It’ll be over soon. There is no way their ceremonies will work, and then we can go back to the way things were.”

“Yeah. I hope so.”

“Is there another ceremony besides Kiyo accepting Monokuma’s motive?” Shuichi asks.

“Actually, Angie is the one who wants to perform Monokuma’s resurrection,” Tsumugi corrects. “But Kiyo offered a counter proposal using an ancient ritual from his lab. Oh, his and Angie’s were unlocked by the last set of mysterious items. Tenko’s too. Kiyo claims his ritual can be used to speak to the dead. He convinced Angie to try this first, saying that if it doesn’t work, they’ll carve wax effigies of the dead and burn the Necronomicon.”

“The five of us declined to take part,” Maki nods to those in the room.

“And Kokichi?”

“No idea.”

And so, after dinner and after offering a small flower to Rantaro and Kaede, Shuichi journeys to the newly opened fourth floor, looking for answers. He barely makes it one step inside Kiyo’s research lab before he’s wrapped up into a hug.

“Shuichi! Gonta is so happy to see you! Gonta wishes he could have taken care of you, like how you took care of Gonta.” Gonta loosens his hold, and plants his hands on Shuichi’s shoulders. “We are performing an exciting ceremony! Kiyo says we might see Rantaro again.”

“Not _see_ him, Gonta,” Kiyo corrects, coming to stand next to them. “ _Communicate_ with him. The dead are dead, but their spirits linger, waiting to be called forth.” Gonta smiles in non-understanding, and Kiyo tries again. “We will see Rantaro, yes. With this, surely we all will.” Gonta beams and returns to a table where Angie, Ryoma, Tenko, and Himiko are crowded around an open book.

“I, too, am glad to see you are well, Shuichi.” Kiyo says. “I helped bring you to your room after your fainting spell, but as soon as Kaito and I laid you down, Kokichi leapt onto the bed to check your breathing and vitals, then set up rotations and kicked us out so he could take the first shift.”

“Thank you, Kiyo. I don’t know what came over me.” Shuichi shakes his head. Something is still stuck. “Where is Kokichi now? I’d like to thank him, but he wasn’t with the others in the dining hall.”

“When he was not with you, he was either interrogating the rest of us or scouring the academy for heaven knows what,” Kiyo says curtly, then sighs. “Please forgive us if we seem to have a lower tolerance for his antics at the moment. However, despite his best attempts to interfere, the ritual will be performed. Gonta, Ryoma, Himiko, and I will stand in the corners of the seance room and recite the incantation. Tenko had originally volunteered, but when we heard her singing voice…” Kiyo chances a look towards the others, nervous. “Let us just say, that it is better this way.” Angie runs over as Kiyo finishes his explanation. “And Angie here has volunteered to kneel under the cage to be the conduit for Rantaro’s soul.”

“Ya, ya! Because I do not completely believe in this process, no offense, Kiyo, I shall be the unbiased judge!” Angie grabs Kiyo’s hand. “And Kiyo has agreed to try the Necronomicon when it fails! It is a win-win for us to finally gain information about the Ultimate Hunt.” She swings their arms back and forth. “We all have the song memorized now!”

“Incantation.”

“Yes, we are ready for the ceremony!”

Kiyo calls for Gonta to assist in carrying the metal cage to an empty room at the end of the hallway. Kiyo and Shuichi share the burden of the wooden dog statue, and Angie brings the salt and incantation book. Kiyo then asks for them to wait back in his lab to avoid distraction as he draws the magic circle.

Shuichi doesn’t believe in spirits. Neither speaking to them, nor in resurrecting them. Still, it must give hope for some.

He’s curious. “So, Ryoma, what do you think about all this? Do you really believe you’ll be able to communicate with Rantaro?”

Ryoma sighs, heavy with burden, but then, he lets it go. “I was in a bad place a while back. You overheard that conversation I had with Kirumi about self worth. But then Keebo told me my life is precious, and Angie assured me of the bonds all around me. It’s been… it’s been something else since then.” He looks at the others in the room. “I’m starting to find a new purpose. I don’t see myself as an outsider. And if my friends believe this ritual will help us find answers, then it’s my job to help them.”

It’s not just Ryoma, Shuichi realizes, it’s everyone. They’ve all come so far in refusing motive after motive from Monokuma, and in enjoying life while not breaking it at another’s expense. It really is something else.

Kiyo returns, and escorts them to the seance room, where Angie is waiting and welcomes Himiko, Ryoma, and Gonta inside.

“It’ll be fine,” Himiko says to Tenko. “My voice will create a magic barrier around my body to protect me from evil spirits. If they were real, that is…” ~~~~

“Do not worry, Tenko, we are all prepared,” Angie says. “Himiko has her magic, Gonta his strength, Ryoma his wisdom, Kiyo his mind, and I have faith that Atua will guide us.”

Tenko waves to them nervously, and then the door is shut. “We’ve had a lot of fun the past few days,” she says to Shuichi, softly. “In a way, your passing out brought us all closer together. So, um. Thanks.”

“You’re welcome, I guess?”

She spins on her heel and marches back to Kiyo’s lab to wait, trying to hide her anxiety. Shuichi starts to follow, until he catches sight of a small shadow darting behind a shattered mirror. Behind and down a corridor, is a room with flashing lights and beeping workstations surrounding a massive cube sitting squarely in the middle. Probably another motive waiting to be deployed in one way or another. Kiyo’s ritual seems almost as implausible as Monokuma’s resurrection, but at least Shuichi knows that Kiyo’s knowledge comes from himself and his past research, not from Monokuma.

Using the Necronomicon will be a mistake, however. Who knows what unintended side effects might arise from accepting another motive, no matter how pure their intentions. Shuichi is sure the seance will fail, and even though he’s been out for two day, he is prepared to fight against using the book.

Shuichi circles around the cube, _a computer_ , he thinks, and meets Kokichi at the back.

“At last, my favorite person is awake! Good to see you finally up and out.” The words are friendly, but his tone is stiff, not exactly made for a warm welcome.

“I heard you helped take care of me, Kokichi. Thank you.” Kokichi hums. “I heard you were screening my visitors, too.”

“Oh? Does that make you mad?”

“No. But from what the others have said, I thought you might be… jealous.” Kokichi lifts an eyebrow. No, that’s not the right word. “Possessive,” Shuichi amends. “Of me.”

“Everyone wants the ultimate detective on their side,” Kokichi says. “You’re the most valuable in a class trial.”

“You know that’s not what I mean,” Shuichi sighs, and reaches out to take Kokichi’s wrist. “You were screening the people with glasses.” He rolls up the sleeve, and the fading cut and bruises stare up at him. “Because of what I told you about this.”

Kokichi chooses silence, and an impassive ‘so what’ expression.

“I had a dream,” Shuichi says, trying to explain the inexplicable. “More like… a memory. It’s hazy, but I had the distinct impression that I did in fact do this to you.” He brushes a thumb over Kokichi’s bruises. “And I did it on purpose. To bring us closer.”

“Bring us closer?” Kokichi echoes and pulls back his hand.

_—your wrist, you say, and they comply. you mark them with two dark circles made by your lips, and bite down hard on the space in between, breaking the skin and forming a bridge. Purple laughs and sticks a finger in their blood, then scribbles on the underside of your hat—_

_—_ and Shuichi is holding his head, falling to his knees, and Kokichi is there supporting and maneuvering him into a sitting position against the wall.

“You asked me to trust you, Kokichi,” Shuichi says, breathing hard. “I trust you too. That’s what the bruise was for. It was an act of trust.”

“Why did you need to trust _me_? Why would you even want to.”

“We played a game to escape. We had no choice. Your wrist is part of the game, but we need to be careful. We hid our clues on purpose.”

“And are there multiple clues?” Kokichi asks.

Frustrated and failing to distill the information from his dreams, Shuichi says he doesn’t know.

“Well, look. Even if we did do this on purpose, we don’t know the most important things: when it happened, or what it means. So what then. What good does this mark do? Your game is worthless, Shuichi.”

“Then why have you been cautious of people in glasses or goggles or lenses!?” Shuichi demands. “Gonta, Tsumugi, Miu, and Keebo. Tell me why you’re suspicious of them. Why you’re scared of them, if not because you recognize that something is going on that we don’t understand?!”

Kokichi shoves Shuichi hard, pushing his back flat against the wall he was leaning against, and crawls on top, straddling Shuichi’s thighs, kneeling, and sneering down at him.

“Don’t. Ever. Say I’m scared,” Kokichi spits. “There is _nothing_ in this world that scares me! Fear itself is just the manifestation of lies. Your body lying to itself, your primal circuits triggering an impulsive and unreasonable response. You can’t trust your body.” He holds up his arm as evidence. “Only your mind.”

It’s a weak argument, steeped in power and intimidation tactics. They both know it. For some reason, one of them won’t admit it.

“But… your mind is lying to you, too,” Shuichi says slowly. “We don’t remember things. The proof of that is the same evidence on your arm.”

“It’s because of the trauma, Shuichi,” Kokichi says, bored in an instant. “Weren’t you the one to say so in the first place?”

“I didn’t understand at the time. I still don’t, not entirely, but given what we do know, why is it so unreasonable to believe that we worked together at some point like what we’re doing now?”

Kokichi takes a moment before selecting his persona this time. And when he does, a darkness covers everything. It’s something Shuichi has never seen before. Blank, but not curious. Passionate, but emotionless. A blend of ferocity and measured restraint that make for a dangerous combination.

“Work together? That’s cute.” Kokichi giggles in a way that is entirely devoid of joy. He focuses his attention on Shuichi’s mouth, his hair, just off to the side, everywhere except the eyes. “I like you, Shuichi. I enjoy our little talks and all the fun we have. But don’t presume to know me. Don’t assume we’ve been ‘working together.’ You’ve put too much stock into our supposed collaboration. Whatever we forgot, it means nothing. It _can_ _’t_. We are doomed to fail because this game is biased. We don’t know the rules or the winning condition that doesn’t result in all of our deaths.” When Kokichi finally looks at him, Shuichi finds nothing behind his eyes. “I will do anything to end this killing game, Shuichi. Anything.”

He climbs off and helps Shuichi to his feet, a cruel reversal mimicry of that night in the courtyard. That was the moment when everything changed. That interaction, the morning after, and all the time they’ve spent together since, Shuichi saw the two of them as something more than just classmates trying to survive. They had become partners, solving the unsolvable. _Friends_ , even.

How foolish. His own ignorance makes his head spin.

“Can you help me back to my room, Kokichi? I’m not as well as I thought, and there’s something else I need to check.”

Shuichi won’t give up. There are more clues to find, more questions to ask…

_...More chances to be deceived? More opportunities to lie to yourself?_

Kokichi supports Shuichi’s weight against his side, an arm slung over his shoulder, and Kokichi’s around Shuichi’s waist. But now, his assistance comes with a warning. “Don’t lean on me too much, Shuichi. I won’t be able to give you what you want.”

They never make it back to Shuichi’s room. They never even leave the fourth floor. When they emerge from the hallway with the broken mirror, they find the door to the seance room open and the candles lit.

Their classmates are screaming.

The Monokuma announcement plays.

And the body of Gonta Gokuhara, the Ultimate Entomologist, lies dead in the corner with a knife plunged into his neck.


	4. Episode 2.3: Bruised and Bloody Evidence of a Forgotten Exchange

* * *

**Bruised and Bloody Evidence of a Forgotten Exchange**

**[Deadly Life]**

Gonta Gokuhara. The Ultimate Entomologist. Arguably the kindest among their number, Gonta was loved by all, and would do anything for his friends. He hosted a butterfly party to lift their spirits. He participated in a supernatural seance to discover the truth about Rantaro. And it was in that, his compassion and his willingness, that led to his death in a dark room surrounded by the very friends he sought to protect.

Shuichi’s stomach churns and his eyes burn, but he buries it. Now is not the time for selfishness. There is a need to grieve, yes, but more important now is the need to uncover the truth. He’s able to keep the bile from his throat this time.

‘Everyone wants the Ultimate Detective on their side,’ Kokichi had said, and so once more, Shuichi sets aside his soul for the sake of the investigation.

Maki and Kiyo assist in the examination of the seance room after the Monokuma file is dropped into Shuichi’s hands. Kokichi sits quietly in the corner and unfastens his scarf, draping it gently over Gonta’s face.

_Focus._

“Kiyo, can you please tell me what happened?”

Kiyo starts with the ceremony. Angie crouched in the middle of the room, and the rest of them spread out to the corners: Kiyo took the upper right, then clockwise was Ryoma, Gonta, and Himiko. Ryoma and Himiko remained in their positions while Gonta set the cage on top of Angie. Kiyo draped a white sheet on top of that, and then he and Gonta maneuvered the dog statue, careful not to disturb the magic circle. Shuichi looks at the bottom of his shoe—the salt is everywhere.

“After that, Gonta and I blew out the candles, and we began the incantation. Rantaro did not speak through Angie’s voice no matter how many times I called out, so I asked for Gonta to light the candles with me.” Kiyo looks towards the corner of the room. “Gonta did not respond, either. We wanted to rush to him after I lit my candle and saw what happened, but Angie was still trapped. Himiko, Ryoma, and I pushed over the dog statue and toppled the cage, and then Angie was the first to Gonta’s side. Freeing Angie was considerably more difficult without Gonta, but in times of great distress, the body’s limits are considerably higher. We possess something we didn’t know was possible.” He shakes his head. “If only…” He trails off, and falls silent.

Shuichi commits Kiyo’s account to memory.

Shuichi examines the toppled cage next. Iron, heavy, but apparently not too heavy for Gonta to carry by himself. About three feet high and five feet wide, Angie would have easily fit in a crouched position. Shuichi kneels to take a closer look at the large gaps between the bars, but the ground below him is not where he expected. A hand grabs his arm before he falls head first into the floorboards.

“I didn’t take you for a klutz, Shuichi!” Kokichi’s voice is light and teasing, despite the tightness of his fingers wrapped around Shuichi’s skin.

“I’m not a klutz.”

Kokichi hums his disbelief. “It’s fine. I know you’re not your best right now.” He lets go, and moves away to investigate the white cloth.

Shuichi knows that too—he’s still weary from sleeping and dreaming for two days, and lightheaded from his earlier exchange with Kokichi—but that’s not why he fell. Closer examination of the floor reveals that one of the floorboards below the cage has come undone. “Kiyo, was the floor always like this?”

Kiyo’s eyes snap back from the corner of the room. “I’m afraid I cannot recall,” he says after a brief hesitation. “The floor is quite uneven all over. Perhaps it came undone when we rolled the cage off Angie.”

Shuichi questions the significance of the uneven floorboard. 

“Did you see this, Shuichi?” Kokichi has the cloth draped over the dog statue.

“…the cloth?”

“Aw. So cute when you play dumb.” Kokichi places a hand on Shuichi’s back, gentle this time, and guides him closer to the cloth. “How about now?”

“No?”

Kokichi releases him with a sigh. “Some detective you are.”

“Why don’t you just tell me?”

“Hah! And ruin all the fun?”

Shuichi knows it’s a lie, but he lets Kokichi have it. Instead, he wonders about the mystery of the cloth.

There’s nothing left to examine except for the bloody corner. Shuichi removes Kokichi’s scarf and looks into the face of another friend he failed.

The angle of the wound indicates that the impact came from above. Puzzling, since Gonta was the tallest among them. Shuichi looks up, and can just make out several beams running parallel across the ceiling. There’s no landing or crawl space for someone to perch and hide, however. He keeps that in mind.

The knife itself is not one Shuichi has seen before. Certainly not from the dining hall. It’s got a wavy blade, several inches long, with a hilt that’s molded perfectly to the hand. A first-grade weapon.

“Why so tense, Maki?” Kokichi pips up. “Seems like something is seriously offending you.”

Shuichi starts to tell him not to be insensitive around people who don’t understand him—although, Shuichi certainly doesn’t claim to be an expert on Kokichi himself—but one look at Maki, and he holds his tongue. She’s gone completely rigid, her mouth drawn down into a thin line, and her eyes fixed on the knife.

“Do you… recognize the weapon, Maki?” Shuichi ventures.

“No. I’ve never seen a kris like that before,” she says right before abruptly storming from the room.

“Uh oh, sounds suspicious. Leave it to me, Shuichi!” Kokichi skips out after Maki, but not before his eyes fall on Gonta one last time. 

Before Shuichi concludes his investigation of the room, he notices small scratch marks along the knife hilt. He replaces Kokichi’s scarf over Gonta’s face, and says farewell to yet another friend.

* * *

Those not investigating the seance room had scattered throughout the fourth floor or down in the courtyard, unable to be in proximity to the body. Shuichi doesn’t blame them. But he does need to interrogate them. 

He starts with Angie’s lab. It’s messy, arranged in a chaotic sort of way that only the owner would understand. Piled high are paint brushes, buckets, and various other tools and spools of sharp wire that Shuichi has never seen before and wouldn’t know the first thing about using. Stacked in the center of the room are blocks of a solid, white substance.

Angie and Himiko are huddled in a corner when Shuichi enters. Angie rubs Himiko’s back, and meets Shuichi by the white blocks.

“It’s wax,” Angie says, answering Shuichi’s questioning eye. “For making sculptures. It gets soft after it warms up, and sturdy when set.”

“Were you planning to use these for the effigies?”

She stretches her arms behind her back. “Yes. But now I am not sure that is a good idea anymore. Maybe this can be an activity we all do together, yes? Make sculptures in honor of the dead.” 

Shuichi agrees with her, although he wishes they didn’t have to do anything to honor the dead, because their friends shouldn’t have died in the first place.

“We had gotten so close, Shuichi. What do you think happened to us?”

“It’s the mastermind. I’m sure the evidence will lead to that conclusion.” 

“Yes,” Angie says. “I’ll never forgive them.” She presses her hands against her legs to hide their shaking.

Himiko joins them as Angie recounts the events of the seance. She wipes her eyes and has little to say, but nods along to Angie’s account. Before Shuichi takes his leaves, Himiko touches Angie’s elbow. “Hey, Angie. Are you okay?” 

“Huh?”

They follow Himiko’s gaze to Angie’s leg where she had pressed her hands earlier. “Oh.” Angie slips away to the sink and prepares a wet cloth. “This is from when I ran to Gonta after we found him. Ryoma pulled me back, but I had already touched him…” She wipes off the blood stain from her hand and leg. “I just could not believe it.”

Shuichi can’t believe it either. But he has to move forward.

He visits Kiyo’s lab next. It’s messy too, but not in the organized sort of way. Books have been pulled from shelves, open and scattered, as if someone was looking for knowledge without knowing where to find it. He finds Tenko and Ryoma closely examining a golden katana in a glass case.

“You were there with me, Shuichi, I don’t know what you’re asking me for,” Tenko snaps in response to his questioning. “We brought the stuff to the seance room, then Kiyo sent us back here to wait as he drew the magic circle. We waited, and met him and Angie in the room before we were shut out. Anything else you want to ask?” Her lips curl. “Maybe you need to go back to your room and sleep it off.”

“It’s a reasonable question, Tenko” Ryoma chides. “Shuichi is just doing his job.”

 _My job,_ Shuichi thinks. _One that’s only useful in times of death._

“Yeah, well.”

Shuichi makes sure to remember Tenko’s account, even though it matches up with his own.

“What did you do after the seance began?” Shuichi asks.

“Just sat in this room and waited. Tried to clean up some of the books, and ended up rereading the Caged Dog Ceremony to distract myself.” She brushes her pigtails back from her shoulders. “I walked down the hall to check on them, but I didn’t go inside. I was definitely worried about Himiko, but she’s a strong mage. I want to be with her now too, but…” She takes a deep breath. “I think we have to deal with loss in our own way first. I can be here for her when she’s ready.”

“I’m sure Himiko will recognize the strength you’re giving her,” Shuichi says. Tenko offers him something of a smile. “Ryoma, how did the seance go?”

Ryoma describes the same account as Kiyo, Angie, and Himiko. “You might have already heard this,” he adds, “but there was a loud noise during the seance. A crash.“

“The others mentioned it,” Shuichi confirms. “Kiyo suspected it was Gonta’s body when he fell.”

“It’s odd, but it sounded like two different noises close together. One could have been Gonta. Don’t know about the other.”

Shuichi takes note of the second noise during the seance, but feels like each step takes him further away from the truth.

* * *

Shuichi finds Kokichi sneaking around in the hallway. “Did you learn anything from Maki about the knife?”

Kokichi immediately hides his hands behind his back. “Hm? Knife? Oh! That.” He purses his lips. “Nope, not a thing. She ran to her room, then to her lab, then said she’d kill me if I followed her inside. Not a very friendly thing to say in the middle of a murder investigation, eh?” 

“So, you’re not hiding anything right now?” 

Kokichi laughs. “Nothing gets by you, huh.” He adjusts his scarf with one hand; he must have gone to his room to get another. “Don’t get mad,” he says in a way that automatically makes Shuichi worry. Kokichi holds out his other hand, palm up, showing off a small scratch and a bit of fresh blood. Shuichi takes a napkin from his pocket and places it in Kokichi’s open hand.

Kokichi raises an eyebrow.

“I just happened to have this with me,” Shuichi lies. He decided a while ago that he won’t give another injured person his dirty sock ever again. He doesn’t think Kokichi needs to know this.

“Riiight.” 

Seems he knows it anyway.

Shuichi removes the napkin, and the blood continues to well. He gives it back and closes Kokichi’s fist around it. “So what happened this time?”

Kokichi scoffs. “You say that as if _I’m_ the klutz! For your information, I was investigating.” He opens his hand again; the cut is still bleeding. “After I got done tailing Maki, I took a peek under the floorboards in the seance room. I didn’t find much. Was pretty dark with just the candles lit. I got cut crawling around, but I could only make out cobwebs and some string and junk. Don’t know what it was.”

Shuichi tries to reason about what could have injured Kokichi, but his time is cut short when Monokuma calls everyone to the trial grounds. Shuichi pulls a fresh napkin from his other pocket. Kokichi takes it with an expression that might be one of gratitude, but Shuichi waves it off as simply being twisted by the dark hallway. He hasn’t forgotten their conversation just before finding Gonta. He knows this probably isn’t real. 

They catch up with Kaito in the entrance hall. “Sorry I wasn’t much help in the investigation,” he says. “I haven’t been feeling good.”

“Seems like that’s been going on since the fourth floor opened,” Kokichi offers. “Something you don’t like about it?”

“N-No! Just… no.”

“No? Well, it’s a weird coincidence that every time we mention the seance or the resurrection you start sweating like you’d seen a ghost. Oh, like that!”

“It has nothing to do with g-ghosts!” Kaito insists. “Just couldn’t bring myself to see Gonta like that.” He shudders, but plays it off as shrugging his shoulders and adjusting his coat. “Thanks for staying strong, Shuichi,” he says. “It’s a sign of a good leader to know when to delegate a task, so I’m putting you in charge of the investigation and the trial!”

“But the investigation is already over, idiot.”

“I’m not talking to you! Shuichi, show us what you’re made of!” Kaito gives him a smile and a thumbs up, and for a moment, Shuichi really believes that they’ll survive this class trial. 

“Anyway, you’ll probably need my alibi,” Kaito continues. “Obviously you saw a bunch of us in the dining hall just before… before it happened. Well, Tsumugi went and got Kirumi from her room—she hadn’t been feeling well again and was resting—and we all heard the body discovery announcement together. Like I said before, we’d all been avoiding the seance preparations or been busy taking care of you, so it couldn’t have been any of us.”

Shuichi nods and accepts Kaito’s account of his, Maki, Miu, Keebo, Tsumugi, and Kirumi’s actions.

Their walk to the trial grounds is punctuated only by their footsteps; the silence of the night is unnerving and enough to keep further conversation to a minimum. They find Miu and Keebo standing in front of the red door and Monokuma statue. Miu’s eyes are red and puffy. Before Shuichi can inquire, Keebo touches his elbow and pulls him aside. 

“I know alibis are important in an investigation, Shuichi, but it’s been quite difficult to talk to Miu since Gonta was found.”

“I know, Keebo. It’s hard for all of us, but it has to be done.” 

Keebo watches Shuichi for a long moment before conceding. “I was in the dining hall from when you saw me until we heard the announcement.”

“And over the past few days?”

“Since we weren’t allowed to watch over you, Miu and I spent time with the others. Angie, Himiko, Tenko, Ryoma, Tsumugi. And, Gonta, of course. Miu was trying to make some kind of contraption for Gonta to catch new bugs.”

“I can hear you guys talking about me.” Miu saunters over with a yawn and a sniff. “If you have something to ask Poo-ichi, ask. Don’t be a gossip.” She yawns again.

“I’m just trying to get your accounts,” Shuichi says, watching another yawn.

“S-Stop staring! I can’t help it if I need more than three hours of sleep a night. And here we are about to stay up all night doing the damn trial.”

“Why so little if you know you need more?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” 

“Miu…” Keebo warns.

“A-Ah, just kidding,” she says. “I was inspired to work late last night, but then Kiyo came by my lab. He’s up at random hours too, so we keep each other company sometimes. Last night, he asked about my security system cause he wants to lock up some dangerous shit in his lab. I showed him how Maki’s worked.”

“Isn’t that a violation of Maki’s privacy?” Shuichi asks.

“We didn’t go into her lab, so, no. I just showed him remotely. What’s the big deal?” She pokes at the scabs forming along her arms.

Shuichi wonders if anything useful is hidden in Miu’s account.

When everyone finally arrives, the time for question is past. No more inquiry. No more interrogations. Only the accusations, and the truth, and the lies spoken when they enter the red door of death.

* * *

Shuichi reviews the facts from his investigation.

 _Monokuma File #2:_ Victim: Gonta Gokuhara. Time of death: 8:05pm. Cause of death: severed carotid artery.

 _Kiyo’s account:_ The ceremony was conducted with Kiyo in the upper right corner of the seance room, Ryoma in the lower right, Gonta in the lower left, and Himiko in the upper left. Angie was under the cage. Gonta placed the cage, Kiyo the cloth, and both maneuvered the dog statue. When Rantaro did not respond to the calls of the medium, the candles were lit, and Gonta was found dead. Kiyo reports a loud sound during the seance.

 _Uneven floorboards:_ The floorboards in the center of the seance room were uneven. It is unknown at what point they became that way.

 _Mystery of the cloth:_ Kokichi says there is something unusual about the white cloth that covered the cage, but did not elaborate.

 _Knife:_ A dangerous looking weapon with a wavy blade and well-crafted hilt. Its origins are unknown. Maki called it a kris, and left immediately after seeing it.

 _Marks on the hilt:_ Small scratch marks had been made on the hilt of the knife.

 _Condition of Angie’s Lab:_ Angie’s lab contains paints, brushes, clay, wax, spools of sharp wire, and many unidentifiable supplies. 

_Angie and Himiko’s account:_ Angie and Himiko corroborated Kiyo’s account of the seance. After Angie was freed from the cage, she ran to Gonta’s side and got a blood stain on her hand that she later wiped onto her leg.

 _Condition of Kiyo’s Lab:_ Messy, with books open and strewn about, and a golden katana in a case.

 _Tenko’s account:_ Tenko, Angie, Himiko, Ryoma, Shuichi, and Gonta helped Kiyo carry items necessary for the seance, then asked everyone to wait in his lab while he drew the magic circle in salt. Kiyo brought them to the room and Angie shepherded them inside.

 _Loud noises:_ According to Ryoma, there were two consecutive loud noises in the middle of the seance.

 _Under the floorboards:_ Kokichi cut his hand on something sharp under the floorboards, but he could only see cobwebs and string.

 _Kaito’s account:_ Kaito, Tsumugi, Maki, Keebo, Miu, and Kirumi were in the dining hall at the time of the murder. 

_Miu’s account:_ Kiyo came to see Miu late last night. He asked her to show him how the security sensors work because he wanted to set up something similar for his lab.

That’s it. That’s all the evidence, and none of it brings Shuichi any closer to understanding Gonta’s death. There is zero motive and still too many unknowns. Kaede led the last class trial, and Shuichi was along for the ride until she handed him the steering wheel and jumped out of the car while it was still in motion. Now, he feels it’s his responsibility to lead them down the path of truth, and do that, he must question the people he’s come to know as friends.

Kaito, Kirumi, Kiyo, and Maki, who each took turns caring for him when he fell ill for two days. 

Himiko and Tenko, who bolstered spirits by orchestrating a magic show and sharing the joy of Gonta’s butterfly exhibit. 

Keebo, who wants so desperately to be seen as a human.

Tsumugi, who took care of the wounded after the ceiling collapse. 

Miu, with her contraptions that helped them discover the mystery behind the first murder and let Maki keep her ultimate lab secured. 

Angie and Ryoma, the former who is bringing the latter out of his shell, and both of whom are a force for positivity.

Kokichi, who… who is still a huge question mark.

Shuichi has no reason to doubt any of them. He couldn’t possibly harbor hidden feelings of uncertainty after all they’ve been through. But he has a role to play. As long as he doesn’t let his accusations influence his belief in his friends, he will put on the mask in order to get to the truth.

* * *

The last time they were here, the Monokuma statue reacted to Kaede’s inquisitive touch. This time, Kaito punches it in the stomach.

The elevator brings them to that same strange underground stage, and like a practiced, solemn ceremony, they file out and take their place at their assigned podiums. Shuichi hangs back with the only other person who hasn’t started their procession. 

“Are you feeling better, Kirumi?” he asks. “I know times like this are especially hard for you.” He recalls that she wasn’t well enough to even leave her room and participate in the last trial. “I, uh, also wanted to thank you for taking care of me,” he adds when she doesn’t immediately respond. “Kirumi?”

She startles, as coming out of a daze. “Apologies, Shuichi. Yes, this is… very difficult for me.” She holds a hand over her heart. “I had grown very close to Gonta after having spent so much time tending to him after the ceiling collapse. It is unbelievable that someone would do such a thing.”

Ryoma notices Kirumi’s absence from the podium beside his, and returns to the elevator. He reaches out to Kirumi in comfort, but she quickly steps back. She looks embarrassed. “Ryoma, I—” 

“I’m also having a hard time believing that this happened,” he says, touching his candy cigarette. “But the only way we can get through this is by supporting each other, like how you’ve already done for us all, and especially for Gonta in the past. Now, let’s do this.”

The three of them take their place, and for the second time since Shuichi stumbled out of a locker and woke up in hell, the courtroom spins, Monokuma looks down on them, and the trial begins.

* * *

**[Class Trial, In Session]**

Determining where the knife came from is their first priority. 

Kirumi says it didn’t come from the kitchen. Even the sharpest knives used in food preparation aren’t as sharp and elaborate as this one.

Angie says it didn’t come from her lab, either. She only deals in pallet knives.

Tsumugi suggests that Kiyo might have had it in his lab, but Kiyo argues against it, and Tenko confirms, having spent time there before and after the ceremony.

Miu believes that whoever owns the knife is the killer. 

All logical and reasonable statements; a good start to the class trial, if a class trial can be measured as any kind of ‘good.’ That is, until Kokichi accuses Miu of being the culprit. That’s when it begins to go off the rails. 

“Miu obviously crafted the knife in her lab!” Kokichi reasons. “You know how she’s got all those supplies and raw material?”

“What the hell, Kokichi. Have you ever even been inside my lab?”

“Nope. I’d never set foot inside your smelly sweat cave.”

“Aahh, then how—”

“Besides,” Kokichi presses on. He looks at his nails. “It’s the only thing that makes sense at this point. If the knife didn’t come from anywhere we’ve been, and no one knows anything about it, then that means someone made it. We can all agree on that, at least, yeah?”

No, that’s wrong. Though Shuichi can’t tell where this line of inquiry will end up—and surely there is a better way to proceed than for Kokichi to throw random accusations—he does know that one of those statements is inaccurate. He says as much.

Kokichi blinks. “Oh? You doubt me?” He almost sounds wounded. “But we’re never going to make any progress if we can’t figure out where the knife came from.”

“No, I don’t doubt you on that,” Shuichi concedes, “but there is someone who may have information about the knife. And that person is Maki.”

He’s stopped by Kaito before he can go further. “Hey, what gives, Shuichi? Don’t go accusing people without evidence like you’re Kokichi. Especially not Maki.”

“Why ‘especially not Maki?’” Keebo asks. “We have not made enough progress to rule anyone out, yet.”

“I just mean, Maki’s the Ultimate Child Caregiver. There’s nothing about her to think she knows the first thing about gigantic squiggly knives.”

“It’s called a kris, actually,” Shuichi corrects. “Right, Maki? That’s what you told me when you saw it. Can you tell us more?” 

Maki plays with her bruised wrist, but doesn’t answer.

“Please Maki,” Angie pleads from beside her. “Anything to help us understand what happened to Gonta.”

Maki remains silent, so Shuichi turns to plan B. “Kokichi.”

“Yes?”

“Is there something you’d like to add?”

“Why, in fact there is, Shuichi!”

“What’s up with this weird double act?”

Shuichi grimaces at Tenko’s observation, and gives Kokichi a look of encouragement to continue his explanation. Kokichi stares back, before finally—and thankfully—agreeing to play along without further prodding. 

“Well! Maki was awfully guarded about the knife when we found it, just like my darling Shuichi said.” Shuichi’s sure he’s gone red from the fake affectionate, but fortunately—and again, thankfully—Kokichi goes on and no one comments. “So, when she ran away, I decided to follow! She went straight to her dorm room, and after that, her lab.” He holds a finger to his mouth. “Now, why was that, Maki? Were you looking for something? Or maybe…” He drops the hand, and his eyes go dark. “Looking to see if anything was stolen?”

“Nyeh? What’s going on? What are we accusing Maki of?”

“We’re not accusing Maki of anything!”

“Does Maki know something about the knife?”

The chatter and speculation fade from Shuichi’s ears, until Maki’s voice comes into focus. “What evidence do you have?” she demands. Her stoic and detached act starts to flake. “Have you ever seen it in my possession? Or in my room, or my lab? This is the same argument you made against Miu, earlier. It’s a distraction.”

Kokichi’s eyes slide over to Shuichi. 

_Yes, I know, I know,_ Shuichi thinks. Back when Kokichi was snooping in Maki’s bedroom on that infamous courtyard night, he must have seen the knife, or one like it. But Shuichi had promised he wouldn’t expose Kokichi’s break in. That’s a lie he’ll have to protect. And to do that, he’ll have to create another.

“I do, Maki.” If Shuichi is to trust Kokichi—and, god forbid, he actually does—then he’ll have get his hands dirty. “When you were injured after the ceiling collapsed, I came to your room with Kaede to check on you. I saw you had a knife hidden there. It was under your pillow, wasn’t it?”

It’s not entirely a lie. It’s just, a bit of speculation. Shuichi remembers the awkward way Maki was laying down with her hand purposefully positioned under the pillow. He had no reason to think anything of it at the time, but if Kokichi thinks Maki is hiding something… 

“Kehehe, my, how interesting.” 

“Ma-Maki? Can you explain this?”

Shuichi’s gamble pays off. Maki takes a deep breath and her expression shifts. She looks tired. Resigned. “Shuichi. I don’t understand why you’re doing this. But… so far, you’ve been reliable. And you remember my warning, right?” Shuichi suppresses a chill. Yes, he remembers. “I’ll have to believe that you know what you’re doing. If not…” The threat hangs poignant in the air.

“I don’t remember much from when you and Kaede came to see me.” She plays with a strand of her hair. “I was on some powerful pain medication. But Shuichi is right. I do hide a knife like this in my room. I keep a different kind on my person, too.” She pats her leg, high under her skirt. “I do this, because…”

The Ultimate Assassin. That’s what Maki says she is. Not a Child Caregiver at all. A lot of pieces fall into place. Why she never let anyone enter her lab. Why she knew how to tend to her sprained wrist. Even Kokichi seems surprised by her confession, though he certainly knew more than he let on. 

“But I’m not the killer,” she concludes.

“She’s right!” Kaito says, looking at each of them. “Maki and I were in the dining hall at the time of the murder.”

“She could have set up the knife in the room beforehand,” Ryoma suggests, chewing his candy cigarette.

“But she would not have known in which room you were performing the seance,” Kirumi counters.

“Nor could she know exactly when to strike,” Angie adds. “Nor _where_ in the room! It was dark, remember? Those of us who were involved in the seance read the ritual book, but Maki and the others never asked about it.” She hesitates, but, like Shuichi, knows that the hard questions have to be asked. “Could someone else have learned Maki’s secret?”

Tenko’s eyes dart around the room, unsure if she wants to believe it. “You mean, someone from the seance group?” 

“I suppose that might be possible.” Kiyo strokes his face. “Though like Tenko, I cannot imagine that any of us would use the cover of the seance to kill our friend.”

“My lab was locked when I wasn’t present,” Maki reminds them. “It’s impossible for anyone to get inside besides me.”

And just like that, another piece of the puzzle snaps into place. But unlike before when Shuichi was probing without an inkling of what ramifications the answer might bring about, this, he knows. And fears.

“That’s not entirely true,” Shuichi says. “There is another way someone could have gotten inside. Isn’t there, Miu?”

Shuichi’s question doesn’t amount to much on its own, but Miu withers under Maki’s expression, and Shuichi realizes why Maki is so hardened. It’s not from scolding children at all. It’s from another life entirely. “W-Well… it’s standard procedure to install a backdoor into any security system. But only I knew about it!”

“Really? Only you?” Kokichi laughs. “You’ve got such a big mouth and an attention seeking personality, so I don’t really believe you!”

“Like I said, only I know how it works!” She wilts again. “But… I did show it to someone.”

“Who?”

“Tell us!”

Suspicion turns to Kiyo, then.

Tsumugi asks if Kiyo convinced Miu to disable the sensors.

Keebo says Kiyo is the most likely, but isn’t sure that everything adds up. 

Angie accuses him of stealing the knife and using it during the seance.

 _It’s plausible,_ Shuichi thinks, but the conversation turns before he can voice his opinion of Miu’s account.

“How could he have aimed so well?” Kirumi wonders. “My understanding is that it was pitch dark in the seance room.”

“Kiyo might not have cared who he was aiming for,” Ryoma says. “He could have been aiming for any of us. Me, Gonta, or Himiko.”

“But why would he do that?”

Angie looks away from Kiyo. “We could never understand the motivation of a murderer.”

Despite the accusations and chaos that fill the room, Kiyo has nothing more to offer than a chuckle, and a simple claim that there is no solid evidence connecting him to the crime.

“We have all the evidence we need!” Miu exclaims. “You knew how I got into Maki’s lab and you had access to the crime scene. You… you used me.” She curls in on herself.

“Besides, no one would take the fall for the blackened,” Keebo says, eyes cast downward. “They would die alongside the rest of us if we voted incorrectly.”

_Something is off._

“But he’s not even defending himself!”

_Kiyo killed Gonta?_

“So we’re ready to vote, right?”

There are still inconsistencies. Or at least, unanswered questions about the circumstances. It might be that Kiyo was responsible for the remaining mysteries too, but… 

“No. We’re not ready yet,” Shuichi says.

The room swirls and the debate continues. 

* * *

Too much doesn’t add up.

Why won’t Kiyo won’t defend himself? It’s as if he doesn’t care if they vote for him. As if he wants to die as the blackened. He’s confident, but about what, Shuichi doesn’t know.

When did Kiyo enter Maki’s lab to retrieve the knife? Do the scratch marks on the knife hilt come into play? And the uneven floorboard? At least one person would have noticed if it was out of place during the seance, right?

Of all the uncertainties and inconsistencies, Shuichi starts there.

“Angie, the floorboard you were kneeling on. During the investigation, I noticed that it was dislodged. Was it like that at the start of the ceremony?”

She says it wasn’t. “In the middle of the ceremony, it suddenly shifted beneath me and I hit the top of the cage.” She pales. “Do you think… that was the moment when Kiyo threw the knife? Like, maybe he walked to the center of the room to get closer?”

“His aim would definitely improve if he was closer,” Tenko agrees.

“That must have been the second loud noise I heard,” Ryoma muses. “A body hitting the cage would have made a sound like that.”

Himiko touches the edge of her hat. “But why didn’t you say that happened, Angie? It must have been real sudden, and hurt a lot.”

“It did,” Angie says. She wrings her hands together. “But I was in a daze after it happened. And when the screaming started, I forgot all about it when I saw Gonta and had to get to him.”

“Okay. Let’s think about how Kiyo could have reached the center of the room,” Keebo suggests, beginning another round of debate.

“Didn’t he walk forward until he stumbled into the cage and tripped on the floorboard?” Tsumugi puts forth. “As long as he could position himself in his corner, he could walk a straight line to the middle.”

“Yeah, but then, wouldn’t the salt on the floor have gotten all messed up?” Kaito asks.

Ryoma shakes his head. “The magic circle was destroyed after we toppled the cage. We have no way of knowing if Kiyo’s footprints were there when the candles were lit again.”

“If we are saying that the knife was thrown across the room during the seance,” Kirumi summarizes, “and that the person who had the knife snuck into Maki’s lab, then only Kiyo fits that criteria, correct?”

_Something about that doesn’t add up._

“No, I don’t think so,” Shuichi interjects. “Remember what the Monokuma file says. The angle of the knife was vertical.”

“So… Kiyo didn’t throw it?” Tsumugi hums. “Did he use the knife in another way, then?”

Another round starts, and even when blatantly being accused of murder, Kiyo still does not deny it, nor attempt to redirect the conversation.

“I noticed something odd,” Maki says, no longer withholding her knowledge. “I keep my knives in perfect condition. Not a scratch on them. But this one had marks on the hilt. Something thin, metal, and sharp would be needed to make these indentations.”

“Maybe something was wrapped around it,” Tenko offers. “But we didn’t find anything like that at the scene of the crime, did we. There was nothing in Kiyo’s lab, either.”

Shuichi remembers his exploration of the fourth floor. “Not in Kiyo’s lab, no,” he says, “but I did find something like that in Angie’s. A spool of thin wire stacked among some of the paints and buckets.”

“Yeah, I have wire like that. It’s for carving and shaping wax.” Angie clicks her tongue. “I can’t believe Kiyo would steal from me."

“I mean, he committed murder,” Kokichi says, blunt, “so I wouldn’t put a little thievery past him. Anyways. Kiyo wrapped that wire around the knife hilt, and hid it somewhere in the room, yeah? Then, at an opportune moment in the dark, Kiyo pulled on the wire and the knife went flying!”

_Hold on…_

“But where would he have put it?” Himiko asks. “Even though it was dark, we would have seen a knife sticking out from the wall. It’s a _levitating_ knife, not an invisible one.”

Not sticking _out_ from the wall. The knife fell _down,_ not sideways. But in order for it to be placed up high…

Shuichi seizes his chest, and in that moment, he realizes the vile truth. “We’ve been completely wrong!” His vision swims and his ears ring.

Wrong. Wrong. It’s all so, so wrong. 

“We’ve constantly been diverted from the truth!”

Diverted. Distracted. Not just from discovering the truth, but also guided purposefully towards the wrong conclusion because the truth is so illogical that it’s almost inconceivable.

“The truth…” 

The truth that will tear them apart. 

As it has already torn apart two of them.

“...is that there was an accomplice.”

There’s no other explanation. There are several times when working in a pair fills in the gaps. Kiyo distracted Miu to open Maki’s lab while the accomplice snuck inside to get the knife. Kiyo wasn’t tall enough to affix the knife to the ceiling, so he needed someone to stand on his shoulders. Kiyo couldn’t have set up the knife the night before on his own using a ladder, because only one knife was stolen from Maki’s lab. It was set up _after_ the room was determined, just before the murder. 

“If we consider when the trick was set up, we can determine who had access to the crime scene alongside Kiyo. The answer will become clear soon. The accomplice…”

The words and the name burn the back of his throat. Words meant to reveal the truth. Words meant to condemn, but words that will ultimately kill. Just like what he did to Kaede. 

Yet, it must be done.

“It’s you, isn’t it Angie?”

* * *

There’s a moment that exists between when sound is made, and when the ears and brain work together to translate it to sense. It’s a small moment, but it exists, nonetheless. Most of the time it’s less than a second, a few microseconds if that, but when the sound translates into something utterly incomprehensible, that moment of nothingness is longer. 

The trial grounds hold their breath as Shuichi’s accusation sinks in. And in that elongated moment, Shuichi fills the void because he knows he must. 

“The opportunity for Angie to be alone with Kiyo after the room was selected was there. It was masterfully orchestrated so we wouldn’t notice it. Remember when we set up for the seance? We took items from Kiyo’s lab into the room: Ryoma, Tenko, Himiko, Gonta, Angie, Kiyo, and myself. We all went together. But, we didn’t all come back together.”

Tenko holds up an unsteady hand. “H-Hold on, Shuichi. I remember that too, but what makes you think Angie stayed behind? I thought she was with us in Kiyo’s lab while we waited for him to draw the circle.”

“By your own account, Tenko. You said that Kiyo came back to bring us to the seance room, and Angie welcomed us inside. Angie was already waiting in the room.”

“Is that really enough evidence?” Ryoma asks, voice low and dangerous. “You’re trying to damn Angie based on a fact recalled from our memories.”

“It’s not just that,” Shuichi says, knowing he’s a complete hypocrite because memories can easily lie. “There are other reasons that point to them working together.”

“Wait, wait, wait.” Kaito shakes his head. “If you’re saying that Angie helped set this up, why would Kiyo stomp on the floorboard to send her into the top of the cage?”

“For once, I agree with Kaito,” Kokichi says. “If they were working together, why would he risk hurting his accomplice? Unless… it wasn’t an accident.”

Shuichi’s heart tightens even further. The stars swimming in his eyes continue to bombard him. “It wasn’t an accident,” he says. “That was done on purpose, too. And the purpose was so that the murder weapon could be hidden.”

“The murder weapon?! The knife was still in Gontas neck!” Miu slams her hands on her podium. “Stop fucking around. Are you saying it’s something else?”

Shuichi forces himself to speak, knowing he is bringing them closer and closer to the inevitable end. “The knife was part of the trick and dealt the final blow, yes, but there’s more to it. If we consider that the knife was released by a wire, then why haven’t we found the wire? All along, we’ve been led to believe that Kiyo did this. But he is not the one who triggered the trap. His role was different; Kiyo purposefully dislodged the floorboard beneath Angie, so that Angie could hide the wire attached to the knife.”

“Wait, _Angie,_ triggered the trap?”

“Wh-What? Why would she do that?”

“That’s impossible,” Angie says for the first time since being accused. “Besides the fact that I loved Gonta just as much as anyone, you have nothing to support your ridiculous claim.”

“I’m sorry, Angie, but I do,” Shuichi says, sadly. “Kokichi, please explain what you saw with the white cloth.”

“I’m up again, eh?” He rolls his neck and slips into the necessary role. An accomplice, of sorts, to Shuichi. The only other person willing to take part in damnation because he knows he must. “Shuichi’s talking about the white cloth Kiyo put over the cage,” Kokichi explains. “It was a nice sheet. Completely smooth. Well, almost. I found a hole near the middle. Small, but there. Small, but large enough to poke a sharp wire though…”

“Anything could have caused a rip like that,” Kiyo jumps in quickly, flustered. “We did not conduct a thorough investigation of the cloth before the seance, so we cannot conclude that this is how it became damaged.”

“No, but in combination with the uneven floor board, you devised a perfect scheme,” Shuichi says.

A perfect scheme, because of the complete absurdity of the whole thing. They worked together to tie the wire around the knife and fix it near the ceiling in the corner of the room. The wire was threaded along the ceiling beams and passed down through the white cloth into the cage when Kiyo set the cloth over Angie. She pulled the wire, and then… 

“How, exactly?” Angie demands. “How are you suggesting that I killed Gonta, Shuichi?”

_It must be done._

“After you pulled the wire to release the knife, you pulled it loose and dropped it in the crawlspace under the floorboards. Kokichi found it during the investigation.”

“Nothing but garbage!” 

“I’m not finished,” he says, and forces his eyes and his ears to focus on the reality before him, and not try to blur it over to protect Shuichi. Nothing can protect them anymore. “Kokichi got hurt. A small wound on his hand. Yes, the wire itself would look like a piece of _garbage_ alongside all the dust and cobwebs under the floorboards, but only you could have put it there. The matching wound on your hand tells the story that you touched the wire as well. It was still bleeding during the investigation when we spoke in your lab. If it was blood from Gonta like what you said, it would have been dry.”

Shuichi turns to his accomplice one more. “Kokichi. Show us your hand.”

Kokichi wordlessly holds out his palm. A fresh bead wells up in the center, even after all this time. 

“Angie. Will you show us yours?”

When she refuses, Shuichi knows her fate is cast. Even so, it’s not done. This final act is necessary in order to harden Shuichi’s mask into what he donned at the start of the trial. The final gloss to solidify his role. His truth, and his disbelief.

Surely this will break them and destroy any chance they had of living and surviving in one piece.

Surely, but Shuichi does it anyway. 

* * *

“Let’s look back prior to the murder. The culprit and their accomplice discovered Maki’s secret: she isn’t the Ultimate Child Caregiver; she’s the Ultimate Assassin. We’re not sure how the culprit learned that information, but the evidence is undeniable. Since Miu set up an alarm system for Maki’s lab, the accomplice was sent as a distraction to deactivate it under the guise of wanting his own security. While Miu was showing off the technology remotely, the culprit crept into Maki’s lab and stole a kris, the murder weapon.

“With the weapon obtained, the culprit and the accomplice got to work setting up the would-be scene of the crime. They must have obtained a saw from the warehouse, and cut the floorboard of the center room. We didn’t have time to check, but it’s possible that all three rooms were trapped in this way. Then, they cut a long piece of wire from Angie’s lab. The wire and the kriss must have been stored on the culprit or the accomplice’s person until the room was chosen.

“The two of them staged an agreement during the day, pretending that Kiyo’s seance could be an alternative to using the Necronomicon for gaining information from Rantaro’s spirit. In actuality, they probably never intended to try the book. They knew their plan for murder would work. They gathered up volunteers for the Caged Dog Ceremony: Himiko, Ryoma… and Gonta.

“A group of us brought the items into the center room, selected at random. When we were done, the accomplice asked everyone to wait behind back in their lab while they drew the magic circle, but they and the culprit stayed behind. After some time, the accomplice came back and brought us to the seance room where the culprit was already waiting. The culprit probably reasoned it was easier to slip back unnoticed into the group as we moved into the seance room, rather than suddenly appearing in the accomplice’s lab. Together, alone in the seance room, they set their plan into motion.

“The accomplice drew the magic circle in salt, and wrapped the wire around the knife’s handle. Then the culprit stood on the accomplice’s shoulders to reach the ceiling beams and secure the wire and kriss in the lower left-hand corner of the room. We don’t know why they picked that spot, nor if they were targeting Gonta in particular. The wire was draped across the ceiling beams to the upper right hand corner, where the accomplice would stand. The wire was so thin, and the room dark, no one saw it innocuously hanging down.

“Then, Himiko, Ryoma, and Gonta were asked to come inside. The culprit took their position in the center of the magic circle. This is also the same location as where the crossbeam was cut. The cage was carefully placed on top, and when it was the accomplice’s turn to drape the white cloth, they also grabbed the hanging wire from their corner and walked it around the room. The wire is so sharp it could have easily been pushed through the cloth. This is probably when the culprit got their cut, when they grabbed it. The wooden dog statue was placed carefully on top by Gonta with the accomplice’s help, so as to avoid the wire that now ran from the ceiling down to the cage. This was arguably the riskiest part of their entire plan.

“Finally, they were ready to commit murder. During the incantation, the accomplice walked to the center of the room. We don’t know if they used anything as a guide, but they could have easily concealed themselves under the cover of darkness. They must have sent some kind of signal to the culprit to signify they were in place. This part had to be coordinated, too: two loud sounds would have been suspicious and not easily explainable. So simultaneously, the culprit yanked on the wire to release the kris that would cause Gonta’s body to fall, and the accomplice jumped on the floorboard to dislodge it. Their timing was good, but not perfect. Ryoma heard both sounds. 

“The culprit was thrown upward against the cage, but that was all part of the plan; the seesaw created by the floorboard and the cage made a gap down which the culprit could throw the used wire. The wire must have wrapped around the knife and ceiling in such a way that it could be easily retrieved without snapping. With that, the accomplice returned to their corner, the crime complete.

“When the candles were lit, the accomplice asked for everyone’s help in removing the cage on top of the culprit. This might have been in an attempt to destroy the salt on the ground that might have shown their footprints. As for the culprit, they knew their hand was bleeding from grabbing the wire. When they were freed from the cage, they rushed to Gonta’s side, purposefully touching him in order to provide an explanation. But that wire was sharp, and the blood continued to flow even after Gonta’s blood was washed off.

“That is the truth of this case. The murder of Gonta Gokuhara was orchestrated by Angie Yonaga, the Ultimate Artist, and Korekiyo Shinguji, the Ultimate Anthropologist, but it was Angie who pulled the string.”

There it is. The damning truth laid bare for all to hear, and judge, and question where and how they went wrong. 

By the time Shuichi finishes speaking, Angie and Kiyo are smiling.

“Aw, Kiyo, I think he found us out!”

“Kehehe… So it seems, Angie. So it seems.”

Angie climbs over the side of her podium and crawls into Kiyo’s. His arm comes to wrap around her waist, welcoming her, as she rests her head on his shoulder, comforted. In an instant, they’ve transformed into something else. No longer their friends, here stands before them two murderers. Their eyes are feral. Bloodthirsty.

Tsumugi scrambles away. “S-So you admit it?!” she cries. “You admit to scheming together to kill Gonta?”

Kiyo strokes Angie’s head, gently, calmly. “We did scheme together, yes, but Gonta is in a better place now. He is with my sister, and with Atua. That is a far better fate than if he had remained here.”

Ryoma’s candy drops to the ground. Forgotten. Irrelevant. “How could you do this to Gonta? Together, we had overcome Monokuma’s motives and our own self-doubts. Angie… you said my life was precious. Don’t you care about us?”

“Of course we care, Ryoma,” Angie coos. “That is why we did it! Because when the word of Atua is spoken, you listen. It’s the same for you too, Kiyo, right?”

“Indeed. My sister, who resides beyond the grave, returned to me in this academy. It was brief, but she confirmed what we already guessed: our existence here is hell. Try as we might to move forward, it is impossible. We are at an impasse. Trapped, until something changes.”

Angie stretches her hand high into the air, as if reaching towards something else, something incomprehensible and entirely beyond their sight. She closes her fist. “And so we changed it! Even though we did not plan for Gonta, it worked out perfectly. He is far too kind for this cruel world.”

“Wait, you…” Tenko doesn’t look directly at the two of them. Most of their classmates can’t. Shuichi can’t look anywhere but. “You didn’t care who you killed?”

“Atua loves everyone equally!” Angie exclaims. “One day or another, some way or another, we will all die here. It is inevitable. So, we wanted to go together, hand in hand with Atua!”

Keebo grapples with the side of his podium to keep his knees from buckling. “Enough with Atua!” he shouts. “Angie, there is a difference between _belief_ in a higher power and hearing voices in your head!”

“Oh, Keebo, my Keebo, you will never understand. When we talked about belief once before, you said you have an inner voice guiding you, too. I misunderstood at the time. I misunderstood you, and myself! That voice is our own voice, nothing higher. It is our _own_ belief. But what I heard that night… that was _not_ my voice. I heard it with my own two ears, felt the vibrations in the air and the breath of air on my face as Atua spoke to me. Kiyo felt it too! Tell them!”

“I… feel sick,” Himiko moans.

Tsumugi leans away further from them. “E-Enough! I can’t take it anymore! Please, can we just vote?”

“But who do we vote for? They’re both fucking crazy!”

“I for one, would be glad to die as the blackened.” Kiyo closes his eyes and caresses his face. “Angie and I prepared for the possibility that we would both be found out. Although we cannot take everyone with us anymore by redirecting the vote towards myself, we hope to lead the way and set a good example.”

The casual admission is so quick, it’s stunning. ‘We cannot take everyone with us,’ Kiyo said. Angie and Kiyo wanted to kill them all.

Monokuma passes his judgment, impartially, but with utter delight. “Well technically, the blackened is the one who pulled the trigger. Or in this case, pulled the wire! You can vote for them both if you like, but it’s majority rules, so… ” he looks around the room and laughs again, and Shuichi counts their number as well. An odd number. There can only be one.

“What if Kiyo abstains?” Kokichi asks so quietly Shuichi almost doesn’t hear him above the chaos. “You know. The rules say you have to vote or else you’ll be killed. If Kiyo really wants to die with Angie, he won’t vote at all.”

“Don’t abstain, Kiyo,” Shuichi says immediately. He had also seen the potential loophole, but thought not to mention it so as not to result in another unnecessary death. Kokichi forced them to face it head-on. Shuichi looks at Kiyo. He’ll never understand, but this, he does know. “Vote for Angie. Don’t take the easy way out. If you really think this place is hell, then stay here with us while we struggle. You may think it futile, but we will prove you wrong. Stay here, and let us show you there is a way other than death.”

It happens quickly after that. 

The vote is made. A collar descends from the ceiling and clamps down around Angie’s neck. She waves and cheers for Kiyo to believe in Atua and in his sister’s words. The rest watch, trapped in disbelief as Angie is dragged away, and her tiny body broken.

* * *

In the wake of tragedy, nothing comes as a surprise. The cries, the stagnation. The guilt of not knowing if they’d done enough to stop it. Could they have, if they had more information? Maybe, if all the rules and all the players were made clear up front. 

But then again, this isn’t _their_ game; it’s the mastermind’s.

Instead of prevention, perhaps perseverance. A lesson to be learned. Kaede might say it’s the strength to move forward. Gonta might say it’s the unbreakable bond of friendship.

Their absence from the room says otherwise.

For the survivors, the numbness of their bodies fades before the numbness of their voices. It’s a slow and silent progression towards the elevator, and everyone who passes Kiyo’s podium gives him a wide berth. Kiyo himself remains still, his eyes fixed on the yellow coat Angie left behind, his expression unreadable under his mask.

Kokichi stops beside Shuichi with a word on his lips, but the room still isn’t ready for sound. Kokichi’s expression shifts as it always does, a million masks in rotation, not stopping on any one long enough for Shuichi to figure out what Kokichi is trying to silently convey. When it looks like he’ll land on one of mutual understanding or, dare he say, compassion, it morphs back into a blank slate, and then Kokichi is frowning and walking away.

That’s right. Nothing comes as a surprise. Least of all the fact that friendship is a facade, and trust is a lie.

He breaks the stalemate. “We should set up a guard on Kiyo.”

“Stashing him in Gonta’s lab would be a good start,” Tenko spits. She and Himiko reach the elevator first and push the call button. The doors open instantly, ready to bring them to the surface and into their twisted reality. “Then we’ll open the cages to unleash the bugs’ vengeance.”

“But Gonta’s bugs are so kind…” Himiko says. “They probably wouldn’t hurt him.”

“No. I don’t mean as punishment,” Shuichi clarifies. “Kiyo is vulnerable. He’s not stable. He might even be sick. We need to understand what happened to him and Angie.”

Miu curses him out, and says to forget about Kiyo. 

Ryoma looks away, and says to keep their distance. 

Shuichi clenches his fists, and says nothing, knowing that their line of thinking is wrong, but not knowing how to alter it.

“I agree with Shuichi,” Keebo says from beside the open elevator. “They weren’t always like this. We have to remember that. I want to figure out what happened to our friends.” He walks back towards the trial grounds and stops in front of Kiyo, contemplating him and what he might say, but there’s nothing right now. Not yet. Instead, Keebo touches Kiyo’s arm and guides him to where Shuichi stands.

“Keebo, what are you talking about?” Keebo doesn’t answer. Kaito turns on Shuichi next. “Shuichi, don’t you understand? Kiyo is already gone. He _became_ the motive. There’s nothing good that’ll come from spending time with him. There’s nothing to learn!”

Maki turns her anger towards Shuichi too. “Kaito is right. Any line of inquiry is fruitless. He’s not even mournful. He _laughed_ when Angie was voted the blackened. He was delighted by this outcome, and he needs to be dealt with appropriately.”

The elevator doors close from disuse. Himiko takes a few steps away, as if prompted forward by the sound. “I want to understand too,” she whispers. “Angie helped Gonta paint scenes for Rantaro and Kaede. Kiyo took care of Shuichi when he was sick. Something must have possessed them.” She keeps her head down, but returns to the trial grounds and joins with Shuichi and Keebo and Kiyo.

“Potential is a scary thing,” Kirumi says, softly.

“It is not about who they were, or what they believed,” Tsumugi says from her side. “But about what they did.”

There’s a tap against Shuichi’s foot. “Well, well, well. If this isn’t getting interesting,” Kokichi says from Shuichi’s side. “Kaito, whatever happened to ‘we gotta have all the cards on the table, the good and the bad,’” he mocks, recalling Kaito’s words from after they found the flashback light. “Seems to me like you’re running away from the truth. Afraid of what you’ll find?”

“We already know the truth. This is murder.” Kaito turns his back on them. “Forget it. Guess I was wrong about you, Shuichi.” He hits the button to call the elevator again. “Kaede killed to protect us, and even then, you exposed her and faced the consequences. But now? I barely recognize you anymore. Some leader you turned out to be.”

The elevator doors close, and Shuichi, Keebo, Kokichi, Himiko, and Kiyo watch as their classmates are carried to the surface, and just like that, within a matter of minutes, the lines have been drawn in a time and a place where they will only bring death and destruction.

**Bruised and Bloody Evidence of a Forgotten Exchange**

**[To Be Continued]**

Deceased

_Rantaro, Kaede, Gonta, Angie_

Surviving Members

_Kirumi, Himiko, Tenko, Kaito, Ryoma,_

_Keebo, Tsumugi, Maki, Kiyo,_

_Miu, Shuichi, Kokichi_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you everyone for sticking with me during my hiatus! This chapter was particularly difficult to write with so many people speaking, and making sure all the clues connected. It turned out longer than I expected, but I hope it was interesting, and maybe even a bit surprising. This is a major turning point in the story, and I’m excited about what’s to come next! <3


	5. Episode 3.1: Equality and Selfishness in a Time of Distrust and Harmony

* * *

**“Hah! Pay up, asshole.”**

“Damnit. How’d you know it’d be Angie? I had her pegged as a weakling.”

**“Lucky guess, really. I didn’t win the victim bet, though. I had Himiko. Thought it would be a cute little tragedy. Who’d you have for victim?”**

_“Miu. No real reason. I’m terrible at predicting these things.”_

“I had Ryoma. Would have concluded his little redemption arc pretty tragically if he just died like that. Womp womp.”

**“That would’ve been a good one. But I like the way it turned out. Gonta was really special. He’ll be missed by everyone.”**

“Yeah. Ready to place the next bet?”

**“Hell yeah!”**

_“Maki’s gonna murder Shuichi!”_

**“Get out! Now that everyone knows her true talent, she’ll be automatically suspicious. She won’t do a thing.”**

_“Like I said, I suck at these.”_

“I predict… Kaito will kill Shuichi. It’ll go down like this: Shuichi is rebelling against the system, but Kaito’s starting to accept the way things are. He’s growing closer to Maki, and forming unexpected friendships with Miu, Tsumugi, and Ryoma, all the ones Shuichi is alienating by siding with Kiyo. He doesn’t want things to change. Especially once they find out they’re in space later on. He’ll want to stay.”

**“I think someone’s gonna try and off Shuichi, too. I would literally cry, because he’s become, like, the best character. I’ll put Kokichi down as the killer.”**

“The way Kokichi was acting back when Shuichi was sick, I would’ve thought he had a crush or something.”

**“Nah. Kokichi likes Shuichi the same way a writer likes a piece of paper; he’s just a tool.”**

“I don’t know… I think Kokichi has more to show us."

_“Hmm… they’re not in true despair yet, but once they uncover each and every lie, it’s gonna come crumbling down fast.”_

“I’m surprised they’re only down by four. They skipped a murder or two.”

**“Yeah, usually it’s down by like, seven. And no double murder either.”**

“Not yet!”

_“Yes, only four dead, but can’t you feel it? The building anticipation? Their aversion to despair and their desire for hope!? It’s almost better that they’ve grown close and were able to persevere through the second motive. The stronger the bond, the more beautiful it is when their lives are crushed and their trust torn apart.”_

**“You know, you should try out next year. You basically live and breathe this show, I bet you’d get to pick any role you want. Maybe even work with the writers!”**

_“If only!”_

“Yeah, and you don’t need to worry about being killed off first. It’s not like you’re hot or anything.”

_“…fuck off.”_

“Hey, and if you did make it to the Finals? I’d be sure to vote you out.”

_“My hero.”_

* * *

**Equality and Selfishness in a Time of Distrust and Harmony**

**[Daily Life]**

“Kokichi is late,” Keebo says. “We agreed upon 8am sharp.”

Shuichi nods. His fingers drum on his desk.

“I hope he didn’t get breakfast without us,” Himiko sighs. “My magic can only sustain me for so long without physical nourishment…”

“Should I go and fetch him?”

“No need, Keebo.” Shuichi gets to his feet, weary, but determined not to let them fall further apart. He opens the door and is not at all surprised to see Kokichi with his hands tucked behind his head. Shuichi levels him a critical eye, and Kokichi returns it with a sheepish grin before ducking under Shuichi’s arm and scrambling onto the bed in the space between Himiko and Keebo.

A few days ago, the scene inside Shuichi’s bedroom might have been pleasant. A picturesque sleepover, with three on the bed, Kiyo cross-legged on the floor, and Shuichi playing host. But not anymore. Not in the absence of laughter. Not with the events of the trial hanging thick in the air. 

Shuichi shuts the door. “Now that we’re all here, let’s discuss last night.” Everyone looks at Kiyo. Everyone tries not to be obvious about it. “It’s too early to discuss anything more than chaperon and sleeping arrangements.”

“I did not mind hosting Kiyo last night,” Keebo says. “It was… an amicable arrangement given the short notice, and… the circumstances,” he finishes, delicately.

“Does Kiyo sleep with his mask on, too?” 

“I hardly think it’s appropriate for me to disclose something personal like that, Kokichi.”

“Don’t you think we’re past withholding personal habits and all that jazz? Let’s dive right into dirty little secrets!”

A part of Shuichi wonders how Kokichi has this much energy for instigation so early in the morning. “If you’re up for it, Keebo, let’s have Kiyo drag his mattress into your room,” he suggests. “Bring your clothes and whatever else you need, okay? Then Kokichi, Himiko, and I will be daytime chaperons.”

“That is the second time you have called it that, Shuichi,” Kiyo says calmly. Exhausted, as if he used up all his energy trying to divert them from the truth at the trial. He agreed to their arrangement without a contrary word after the elevator departed, and the five of them were left standing in the wake of Angie’s death. “I am not a child, and if I were to take aggressive action against anyone, I would be immediately suspect.”

Keebo and Himiko exchange a look, but say nothing. Kokichi has no such reservations. “It’s protection from the others,” he says, matter of fact. “So _they_ don’t try to off you.”

“That’s not my sole motivation,” Shuichi says, though he does admit he doesn’t want to risk things spiraling further out of control. “It’s more like… you were our friend once. And if we can understand your mindset, why you did it, maybe we can start to heal, some.”

 _But never forgive_ , he doesn’t say. _And also never forget._

Kiyo’s jaw audibly snaps shut under his mask. He pokes the floor in silence.

“Himiko, you start first, okay? We’ll all meet up for lunch, then I’ll go next. Keebo, you’re off the hook until nighttime. Kokichi will start tomorrow morning.”

“Yep yep!”

“Understood, boss.”

“C’mon Kiyo. Let’s get breakfast.”

Good. One item of business taken care of. He cracks his fingers and prepares for the second. “Kokichi, you stay for a minute.” 

Kokichi’s foot hovers before touching down again. “Am I getting called out by the teacher?” He asks, delighted. “Do you have a secret assignment for me? Oh! Or maybe…” The door clicks shut after the other three file out. His lips curl up. “A confession to make?”

Shuichi’s too tired for this. On good days, Shuichi is up before the morning announcement for his daily jog. But it’s not a good day. He spent last night crying into his hat, his body shaking, until he lifted his head and it came away bloody. It was impossible to sleep after that.

Still, how many chances does he get to try and catch Kokichi off guard by playing the game himself?

“Yes,” he says.

“Oh.” Kokichi’s smile drops. He stands a little taller, waiting.

No, Shuichi was right in his initial assessment. His heart races and he puts his back against the wall before his legs give out. It was a mistake to make Kokichi look at him this way when he can barely hold himself together.

“Um, a-anyway, I’m going to tell you that you were wrong. About our collaboration—because that’s what it is,” he plows ahead before Kokichi can deny him again. “Just…” He holds up his hands in surrender. “Let me explain. Please.” 

Kokichi takes it in. The pleading stance, the way Shuichi’s too tired to properly support his body without leaning against the wall, the bags under his eyes. The redness in his cheeks. And with no reason other than to indulge, Kokichi agrees to the request.

Shuichi retrieves his hat from the shelf and sits with it at the edge of his bed. “I abandoned this after…” 

After he failed. After he saw Rantaro’s blood in a dried pool across the library floor. After he watched Kaede hang. And even so, he did nothing to help Gonta. And even so, he failed to recognize how far gone Angie and Kiyo were. Their faces and his guilt consume him, and even though Shuichi is wide awake, he’s perpetually trapped in a nightmare, drowning again on the open water, the pleas of the dead sung in his ear but he is so helpless to stop it— 

“Aww, it’s your old emo hat!”

—The sound, a voice, is soft, but shines strong against the dark. Shuichi swims towards it as if it were a guide, not to save him completely, but at least to lead him towards shallow water.

“You gonna start wearing it again?” Kokichi asks.

“No.” Shuichi croaks. “No,” he says again after clearing his throat of the past. “But last night, I…” _Cried into it._ “Looked at it again.” He flips it over.

“You know, I thought it looked nice on you. You didn’t have to shred it to pieces. Or… bleed on it?”

“The blood was already there. And I didn’t shred it.”

“That so…” Kokichi squints at the fabric underside of the hat. “Let’s see here. We’ve got sixteen thin strips sliced into the underside. Two are a little shorter, leaving fourteen long.” He rubs a long strip between his fingers. “This one was smeared with blood. And here I can see some letters, but they got smudged,” he says, gesturing under the brim. “What happened there?”

“It got wet.”

“The strips were made with precision,” Kokichi observes.

“With a knife,” Shuichi agrees.

“Probably this one.” Kokichi pulls a pocket knife from the depths of his clothes.

“Wha—Kokichi! You just carry that around?”

“Well, it’s a good thing I do, isn’t it!? Now we can say with higher probability that I was the one who left this message for you. Now, when’s the last time you wore the hat?”

“The day Rantaro died.”

“Mhm. Same day I found your love bites.”

Unbelievable. This can’t be a coincidence or a series of serendipitous events, not anymore. Although, he always knew it wasn’t. The pieces are coming together, one after another, ready to be realized and the puzzle assembled with all the knowledge they’ve accumulated but could not speak to their significance. The circumstances still don’t make sense, but soon, they will. _Finally._

“I haven’t seen you smile like that before,” Kokichi smirks. “Having fun?”

And then Shuichi comes tumbling down. How easily he was enrapt by the world they’ve been thrust into. The only reason they’re in this situation is because their friends have died, and others have become murderers. Shuichi wouldn’t have found the clue if Kiyo and Angie hadn’t killed Gonta and he hadn’t cried into his hat. He never would have taken it off in the first place if Kaede didn’t try to kill the mastermind and end up killing Rantaro instead.

His face burns with shame.

Kokichi notices. “Come with me,” he says. His eyes sparkle.

* * *

Kokichi’s room is unusual. 

Boxes filled to the brim with paper and sketches. A clean shotput ball on the nightstand next to a spool of wire—did Kokichi get that after the trial last night?—There’s a white board, too, dragged from a classroom. Shuichi can only imagine how much of a struggle it was to cart over from the academy and then up a flight of stairs.

The white board itself is covered in pictures, names, and lines. An arrow from Kaede to Rantaro. Another from Angie to Gonta, with Kiyo’s name in parenthesis underneath. Off to the side is a familiar symbol; two circles, a small line connecting them, with four names scribbled underneath: Miu, Gonta, Tsumugi, and Keebo. Gonta’s is crossed out. All the other names and pictures are pushed to the side with choice descriptions appended to each.

All in all, it’s a meticulous and comprehensive inventory of their deadly life.

“What’s this?” Shuichi points to a butterfly-like symbol next to Tenko’s name. 

“Not sure yet. Just something I saw.”

“Which is…?”

Kokichi won’t say. Of course. Shuichi let himself be fooled by their moments of mutual understanding. Even though Kokichi has let him in—metaphorically into his investigation, and psychically into his room—they’re not friends. He still guards some secrets close.

_Selfish._

Shuichi looks at the glasses mark next. He touches it, and his finger comes away dry. He compares it to the line drawn from Angie to Gonta. This one is still a little wet. Shuichi smiles. Kokichi may be able to lie with his words, but he doesn’t command control over the speed at which ink dries. The glasses mark wasn’t drawn after the trial last night. It was earlier, possibly even before Shuichi cornered Kokichi in the computer room and accused him of screening people with glasses. Kokichi denied it then, but the ink doesn’t lie; Kokichi knows. He’s known all along that this means something.

Kokichi uncaps a marker and draws a picture of himself in a blank space, and slides Shuichi’s portrait beside it.

“You and I are special.” He faces the board with one hand on his hip and the marker twirling in the other. “Yes, _yes,_ Shuichi. I know you want to give me a lecture acting all smug, but let’s just skip over that.” Shuichi skips the lecture, but believes he’s perfectly entitled to feel smug since he got Kokichi to admit he was wrong, even if he didn’t say so directly. “The day Rantaro died, weird things happened to us.” Above their portraits, Kokichi writes _Day Zero._

“By the time we caught up with everyone in the library, I noticed the sock on my arm. I thought it was a crappy bandage, but then I saw you on your knees in the hallway. That’s when I checked and saw the hickeys too.” Kokichi redraws the mark below his cartoon face. “The bruises meant nothing to me, but to you…” he scribbles the word _glasses_ with a question mark. “Aaand that does it for me!” He tosses Shuichi the pen. “You’re up, partner.”

 _Partner._ It’s not the complete truth, but Shuichi fulfills the role because he knows it isn’t far off. 

“Last night, I looked at the hat I last wore the day of Rantaro’s death,” Shuichi recounts. “It was cut to strips and had blood in it. I didn’t find any wounds on me the day of, head or otherwise, so I can conclude the blood isn’t mine. 

“Sixteen pieces were cut by a knife. Fourteen long, two short.” He draws the vertical lines on the board next to the glasses. “One was lined with blood.” He scribbles across a long one. “Something was written under the brim, but I could only make out a few letters after I cri—after it got wet. T-R, then a final R at the end.”

He caps the pen. “Those are the facts. Knowing what we know about your wrist, I likely made the hickeys, bit you, and then you used the blood and knife to mark my hat.”

“So you finally admit that you did kiss me?” Kokichi asks, sweetly. “Too bad we both forgot. Next time, make sure it’s more memorable, okay?” Kokichi continues before embarrassment completely floods Shuichi’s face. “More importantly, what makes you so sure _you_ didn’t write on your hat using my blood? Or that _you_ didn’t use my knife to cut the strips?”

“For the same reason that I know _you_ didn’t suck on your own wrist,” Shuichi says, thankful for the fact that Kokichi thinks their investigation is more important at this particular moment. His face can only get so red. “It’s an exchange of deeds. An exchange of information. Let’s think about our new clue.” He taps the board. “Of the sixteen strips, two are singled out by being short, and another with the blood.”

Kokichi retreats to his desk and kneels backwards in the chair. “Or maybe it’s the other thirteen being singled out?”

“Either way, there are three groups.” Shuichi takes in the rest of the board, the way their pictures are arranged in groups of two or three, and the remainder. “Is it… representing us? We know there are sixteen of us in the academy.”

“Well, we _think_ that. Based on what Kiyo and Angie said yesterday about seeing someone, I’m not so sure.”

“But it’s the most likely, right? Let’s mark it as an assumption. We can always change it later.” Shuichi draws horizontal lines above the three vertical groups of one, two, and thirteen, and writes _students_. “We can also assume that the symbol on your arm is likely referring to a glasses wearer amongst us.”

An eraser goes flying and hits the board. “I already figured that out, remember? Keebo’s not got real eyes. Miu has goggles. And Gonta and Tsumugi have actual glasses.” 

“Could the two short strips represent the glasses wearers?” Shuichi muses. “On second thought, probably not. There are four glasses candidates. That’s much harder to figure out who is who.”

“They could be dead people,” Kokichi offers.

“No, because when this was found, only Rantaro was dead. You noticed the bruise during the investigation, and if we assume that the hat was cut around the same time, then the short strips can’t be deceased.” Above the group of two, he writes _glasses_ and _dead_ then crosses them out.

“Let’s consider another angle,” Shuichi continues. “The two short strips could be the two critically wounded. Gonta and Maki.” He takes notes as he narrates. “Following that line of thought, the single strip in blood could be Kirumi, since she became ill.”

Kokichi throws himself from his chair to the bed. “But why, Shuichi. Why?” He rolls onto his back, stretching as if trying to reach the truth. “Why is this important for us to know in the first place? Why bother hurting ourselves and joining forces or whatever?”

“Maybe the blood represents a death,” Shuichi says, something still nagging at his eye. He writes _Rantaro_ above the single tally mark. 

“That doesn’t make any sense!” Kokichi is up and off the bed, and the marker is out of Shuichi’s hands before he realizes it’s gone. “When would we have had time to make the marks if it was after Rantaro died? Unless, you’re confessing. Did you do it, Shuichi? Did you kill Rantaro and make a secret bloody confession into the hat? Or maybe I did it myself, and let you in on my deeds without no one else noticing!”

Shuichi tries to catch Kokichi’s arm but is too slow; Rantaro’s name is erased. “We don’t know exactly when the marks and cuts were made, so we can’t conclude that it’s unconnected to him!” Shuichi shouts. “We don’t remember, right? It’s a reasonable possibility and you can’t discount it. Add it back to the board.”

“No!”

He lunges for the marker, but Kokichi is faster. Shuichi smacks his knee against the bed, and falls back under the weight of his buckling legs. Kokichi slips away, laughing.

“Damn it, Kokichi, this isn’t a game!”

“Of _course_ it’s a game, Shuichi!” Kokichi grins and hovers by the foot of the bed. “Look at us now! Strategizing because of some mystery, some _game_ the two of us created for ourselves to play.” He leans forward until his arms have Shuichi trapped. “And it’s. Been. Fun! I see it in your eyes—you’re loving this! A true detective, investigating a real mystery that puts our very lives on the line.”

Shuichi still doesn’t breathe as Kokichi keeps talking. “It’s a game where we’re completely at a disadvantage! We have no memories, nothing to trust except for each other, if we dare. What do you think could have led us there, right up to the edge, to jump into a future with no knowledge that we would even be alive to find each other after the fall?”

Kokichi takes a step back, and the twisted smile and the darkness remain, masking everything they’d done up until now, all the progress in solving the mystery and getting to know each other, shattered and tainted like it never was. 

_No, that’s wrong,_ Shuichi thinks as he gets to his feet. The only reason Kokichi is acting this way is _because_ of their progress, their connection. Shuichi enjoys unraveling the mystery if he dares to admit it, but he’s terrified of what the truth might reveal, and what it says about himself.

He wonders who Kokichi’s performance is truly for.

Kokichi silently gestures to the door, and Shuichi leaves the matter unsettled, for now, but he’s not entirely disappointed by the outcome. 

* * *

The dining hall is awake and bustling by the time Shuichi arrives.

“Would you like seconds, Ryoma?”

“No thanks, Kirumi. But make sure to sit and have some yourself.”

“Of course. And for you, Miu? Tenko?”

“We’re fine.”

“Uh, speak for yourself. I’ll take another pancake.”

“You’ve got legs, haven’t you? Kirumi, come and sit!”

“In a moment.” Kirumi moves to the sound of the door shutting. “Good morning, what can I get you—oh, Shuichi. And…” Her eyes drift to the side and land on Kiyo and Himiko standing behind him. Shuichi found them in the garden, and then walked over together. “My apologies,” Kirumi says. “There are leftovers in the kitchen. Please, help yourself.” She bows and hurries away to prepare a plate for herself.

_Ah, so it’s going to be a polite cold shoulder._

“Welp, you heard her. Let’s eat!” Kokichi pops up from nowhere, all cheek and smiles, as if he wasn’t trying to intimidate Shuichi and lie to himself in his bedroom just five minutes ago.

After their arrival, the air is stagnant, with conversation momentarily halted, but Shuichi and his group do their best to carry on without adding unnecessary fuel to the fire. No need to bring up last night. Just eat breakfast and get out without incident. Interrogation of Kiyo will come later.

And it goes well. Utensils clatter against plates again, and light conversation returns. Kokichi quizzes Himiko on her magical prowess and suggests she put on another magic show. But when Himiko asks Kiyo to be her assistant, Shuichi starts a timer in his head.

“You would want my assistance?” 

“Magic doesn’t discriminate.” Himiko leans towards Kiyo and sniffs. “Yep. I can smell that you’re nothing special when it comes to magic.”

“Then, why have you selected me?”

“Because you need something to fill the gaps. Magic can do that, Kiyo.”

He falters. “Thank you, Himiko. I would like to learn more. Will you ever reveal the trick behind your water escape act?”

“I already told you, it’s _magic.”_ She sighs. “You’ve still got a long way to go…”

Across the room, Tenko opens her mouth, but Ryoma puts a hand on her arm and shakes his head.

“Under your guidance, I expect I will go far,” Kiyo says.

“Good. Now you’re learning.”

Tenko shakes off Ryoma. “Enough!” Her chair is knocked aside as she stands. 

_Ding ding ding. Not even three minutes._

“Himiko, how can you smile like that? I don’t understand how you can sit across from our friend’s murderer and offer to tell him your most guarded secrets!”

“Not now, Tenko,” Ryoma tries to mediate.

“No, she is right.” Kirumi folds her hands in her lap. “I am afraid I can no longer able to keep up this farce. I would request that you not eat the food I prepare any more.”

“Aw, no more mommy treatment?” Kokichi taunts. “Just cause your kid made a mistake, do you immediately stop loving them?”

“That is hardly a fair assessment…”

“Ah, so you’re a prejudiced maid! I see, I see. You pretend to be all ‘holier than thou, I will do whatever is asked of me,’ but now you’re treating us differently because we disagreed with you. Hypocrite.”

Kirumi’s eyes flash. _“Please,_ cease your ridiculous posturing!”

“Or what. Will you kill me? Ultimate Maid has gotta be a good _cleaner_ too, eh?”

The side door bangs open, and Miu disappears through it. Smart, not wanting to get caught in the middle of this. Whatever _this_ is. What to even say? Defend Kiyo? Say ‘no, he’s not a murderer’ because everyone knows that’s not true. Preach forgiveness and forget anything has ever happened? Of course not. Tell Kokichi to shut the hell up because he is making this so much worse than it could possibly be? Kokichi would never listen at a time like this.

In truth, Shuichi has no kind words to offer now. The only thing he has ever been good at offering is the truth, no matter how cold and cruel.

“Himiko, don’t be fooled,” Tenko pleads again. “If you keep associating with murderers and psychopaths, they’ll get you next!”

Himiko turns her eyes away. Kiyo stares at his plate. Shuichi remains quiet. Kokichi turns up his nose. “C’mon guys, it’s obvious that we’re not welcome here.” With a flourish, he holds out an arm for Himiko, and they exit the dining hall as if royalty, leaving Shuichi to nudge Kiyo and follow.

* * *

Shuichi offers to supervise Kiyo for the rest of the morning and afternoon. Himiko seemed to be handling it well before getting confronted by her friends, but Shuichi doesn’t want to push. He knows she was being kind to Kiyo because she cared about Gonta and Angie so much. That’s not to say she forgives him. That’s not to say that it was easy for her at all. 

Himiko and Kokichi split off towards Himiko’s lab, and Shuichi takes Kiyo down to the library. Not the most comforting of places given it’s history, yet all the more reason why it’s unlikely they’ll be disturbed. 

Kiyo settles himself on the steps of the ladder. Shuichi leans against the adjacent bookshelf. “I really did see my sister,” Kiyo admits, answering the unasked question. “I heard her voice with my ears, saw her body with my eyes, and touched her skin with my hands.”

“Did your dead sister also tell you about Maki’s talent?” Shuichi asks, trying not to make his disbelief too evident.

Kiyo doesn’t take note. In fact, he seems more uncertain than he did last night. “It was Atua who told Angie,” he says with a furrowed brow. 

Until now, Shuichi’s working hypothesis has been that this was nothing more than a hallucination. Drugs of some kind, or a sickness spread by Monokuma as an extra push to encourage murder. But for Angie to learn information about Maki that Maki shared with no one… it’s seeming less likely that this was a shared delusion.

“When did it start?”

“The night after our labs were unlocked. You had cautioned restraint about the items provided to us by Monokuma, Shuichi, but you were unconscious. Besides.” The ladder creaks as Kiyo leans back. “There was the potential to unlock my lab. _My lab._ My life and my passion. I had to take it.

“I showed Angie the traditional masks in my lab. She was struck by the idea that we could mold and decorate masks together, all of us as a group. She ran back to her lab with a promise to bring samples of paint and material. And it was then, in Angie’s absence, that I saw _her._

“She glided through the doorway and walked to my side. She caressed my face. The perfect replica. Part of me knew it wasn’t real; my sister is dead. Yet a stronger part of me believed that miracles could happen. My sister told me what this place is: hell. She told me of a way out: death. Then she departed. I scoured my lab for ideas, and my sights landed on the Caged Dog Ceremony. 

“Angie was holding the wire from her lab when she returned, grinning like I’d never seen before. Somebody else might have thought she had come to kill me, but I felt the same way. I’m sure I had the same look on my face as I held onto the book.

“Shuichi, I do not think you understand. We have tried to hold it together, but it’s nothing more than an act. Each of us wants to escape, more than anything. And when my sister appeared and promised me my deepest desire, and Angie, a trusted friend, subsequently confirmed it, how could I not believe? It was an act born of desperation.”

Shuichi has also felt desperate many times. The moment they found Rantaro here in this room. The moment when he realized that Kaede was the culprit; she was desperate too. Every night when he wakes up from his oppressive dreams where he sees nothing but a dark hallway and two suns, and feels blood running down his neck. Every morning when he sees his classmates, his friends, and realizes that help is not coming and that they have to find their own way out of this hell, or live—and die—in it. 

He wants to ask if Kiyo regrets it. He hasn’t preached about hell and death like he did during the trial. He’s been quiet and seems genuinely surprised when anyone shows him something other than hate. Watching Angie’s execution and living in the aftermath would have surely shown him that murder is not the way, right?

Kiyo sits staring into space, eyes glazed over, rocking back and forth on the ladder step. Shuichi’s skin crawls. He doesn’t think he could handle the answer.

* * *

Dinner is awkward. So much so that Tsumugi and Kirumi take their plates out to the terrace, despite the evening chill. Keebo is so nervous that he talks and talks and talks until Kaito can’t hold his tongue any longer.

Dinner is short, after that. 

Keebo takes Kiyo back to his room for nightly supervision, and Shuichi heads to the kitchen to clean the dishes Kirumi left after she retired for the night. Despite her talent, she’s only human. Just like the rest of them. 

The footsteps that stop at the doorway are expected. Shuichi doesn’t need to turn around to envision Kaito leaning against the wall with his arms crossed. He envisions Maki, too, silent as the assassin she is, looming behind him. Shuichi continues with the dishes.

“You know, Shuichi. After everything you said last week about not giving into Monokuma’s motives and working together, I thought you’d understand what happened. Angie and Kiyo were _infected._ They’re not the same people we called friends. And yeah, I get that they weren’t always like that, but now we can’t trust anything they’ve said. Thinking about it’ll make you as sick and twisted as them.”

 _You’re wrong,_ Shuichi thinks. _Kiyo told me something happened. We need to understand so it doesn’t happen again. You said so yourself, Kaito. We have to be informed. I can’t let that go._

He holds his tongue for now.

“We were finally starting to live in peace,” Kaito goes on. “We’re not any closer to escaping, but we weren’t falling into the mastermind’s hands anymore. Then the two of them snapped and killed the best of us. And hell, they even admitted they didn’t care if they killed Gonta, or Himiko, or Ryoma!”

Shuichi grits his teeth. _I know, I know. But somehow the mastermind played a new card. We have to figure out what._

“Angie was happy to die. And Kiyo wouldn’t have minded either! They wanted to kill everyone with their trick. Every last one of us.”

_I know. It makes me sick, but we can’t splinter anymore._

Shuichi forces himself to pick up another dish.

“Damnit, Shuichi, say something!”

The punch to the side of his face is also expected.

Maki bristles but doesn’t intervene. Instead, she says, “What happened after you got sick, Shuichi? You’ve changed. It’s unbecoming for a leader.”

Shuichi finally turns to face them, gently touching his cheek. “You’re right, Maki. The only thing I’m good at leading is the class trial. That’s fine. But Kaito, you said that the motives provide insight into the mastermind’s plans for us. That by watching them and using the keys to unlock more rooms, we’ll eventually find something the mastermind didn’t intend for us to see. 

“But using the items only brings a greater potential for disaster. We’ve _seen_ that. We can’t be tempted by them anymore, especially when we have so much to work with already. We haven’t fully understood the situation we’re in. That’s why we can’t ignore Kiyo. That’s why I have to be strong, because if I let Gonta’s death destroy me, then the mastermind will win.”

Kaito scoffs, unimpressed, and unconvinced. “I thought I knew you, man. Turns out, you’re nothing but a really good liar. You don’t care about us. You see it as a _game_ you can win.” Kaito pushes past Maki, but not before delivering the final bite. “You’re just like Kokichi.”

Alone in the kitchen and holding his bruising cheek, Shuichi wonders about the differences between selflessly lying for the sake of others, and selfishly lying to himself.

* * *

The sky looks the same as it did the night Kaede died. Unpolluted. Unfamiliar stars. The same oppressive darkness surrounding him. It’s not as if he was expecting anything different. It’s the evening after Gonta and Angie died, afterall, and everyone died a little as a result.

Shuichi explores the now familiar paths in the courtyard. He used to see Gonta around the back of the academy. It’s where he found the nice little pebbles that he painted and offered to Kaede and Rantaro. One time, Gonta asked if they could paint bugs and flowers together, and he proudly scattered his finished forest scene at the shrine. Gonta said this was his favorite spot to look for bugs. Quiet and overgrown enough that none of the students came back here. 

Tonight though, Shuichi isn’t the only one to have wandered into Gonta’s garden. He finds Kokichi on a large stone, kicking his feet back and forth, twisting tall blades of grass between his fingers. There’s no mask tonight; just a boy who’s all alone. He breathes in the night, his face turned upwards and his eyes open but unseeing beyond this very small world. When Kokichi scoops up two pebbles from the ground and heads back towards the academy, Shuichi follows. 

The dining hall is empty. Kokichi places both stones in front of the new, framed portraits of Gonta and Angie at the shrine. One pebble, he touches to the bottom of Angie’s frame. The other, he pushes to Gonta’s, then takes it back and returns it to his pocket. ‘I’ll hold onto this for you,’ he might be saying.

_Just like Kokichi, Kaito had said. Is that right?_

Kokichi turns from the shrine to find Shuichi watching. Rather than run, or hide, or fake, Kokichi does nothing. Whether he’s tired, or if it’s all part of a greater scheme, he doesn’t change his expression to one of shock or boredom or exaggerated sadness. He simply exists in this moment with Shuichi, grieving for their dead friends, and Shuichi treasures it for what it’s worth before the masks rise and the lies fill the air, and the world inevitably shatters again tomorrow.

* * *

“If I can solve this mystery, there won’t be any more deaths.”

Shuichi combs his fingers through his hair. He takes a deep breath and says it again.

“If I can solve this mystery, the mastermind’s lie will be revealed, and there won’t be any more death.”

He grips the edge of the sink until his knuckles turn white and his fingers hurt. _Again!_

“If I can solve this mystery, Rantaro and Gonta, and Kaede and Angie won’t have died in vain!”

The mirror before him shows a dismal sight: himself, eyes red from equal lack of sleep and equal amount of crying, hair a little too flat on the side, and that one strand sticking up in the middle no matter how much he smooths it down. The hat helped, but the hat is part of his past. The ‘him’ that stares back is the present; the one that will win back the future for everyone.

He splashes water on his face, and gets ready. He grieves in the night, in private. In the day, in public, he seeks the truth.

Today’s he will solve the mystery of the events surrounding him and Kokichi. Objective one, find Kokichi and copy down the notes they wrote on his white board. Objective two, reinvestigate everyone’s account from the ceiling collapse. Objective three, interview the people in glasses.

_Let’s get to work._

* * *

Nothing goes to plan.

After nearly an hour of searching, objective one is still not met; Kokichi is nowhere to be found. He has a tendency to disappear when he’s needed, though Shuichi has a feeling he’s lurking just around the corner, deliberately tailing him so as to avoid him.

No matter. He’ll get that list another way. It’s too dangerous to write on a classroom white board—where in the world did Kokichi find the one he dragged to his room? There are literally no other boards on wheels—so Shuichi settles on a more mobile option: a marker from Angie’s lab, and loose paper from Kaede’s. 

He sits on Kaede’s piano bench and does his best to recreate the deductions and facts he and Kokichi drafted yesterday. He can’t recall it all, but he’s sure he can bribe his way into Kokichi’s room somehow to get the complete list. In the meantime, he tries to reconcile the clues. Two short strips. One bloody strip. Each strip possibly representing a person; there were sixteen in total. The blood strip could be Rantaro, or it could be a glasses wearer. The two strips could be the severely injured, or glasses wearers.

The one strip could be anybody, and the two strips could be anybody else. There’s no rhyme or reason as to why Shuichi and Kokichi would have made these marks, or what they wanted to convey. There’s simply not enough evidence yet to accompany their forgotten memories.

He shoves the papers into his pocket and goes in search of people to interview for objectives two and three. 

_Let’s get to work, again._

* * *

Nothing goes to plan, again.

When he announced himself to Miu as she was rooting around in the warehouse, she let out an unusual sound of surprise and backed herself against a shelf that almost sent boxes crashing down on her. Shuichi rushed to hold them in place, but by the time it stabilized, Miu had already scurried away. 

Tsumugi doesn’t even grace him with a sound effect; the instant she spots him walking towards her, she immediately stops and walks the other way. The one who spent the most time with Gonta immediately after the ceiling collapse was Kirumi, but he can’t find her anywhere. 

Keebo, he finds at the edge of the pool.

“Do you remember, Shuichi, when we had the pool party?” Keebo swishes his feet. If the water level was higher, they would be making little waves. “We had talked about what it meant to be human, and we had a lot of fun.” The imaginary waves stop. “What has happened to us? What have we become?”

It’s the same question Angie asked Shuichi after she killed Gonta. Nearly word for word.

“I know you’re not one to sit on the sidelines, Shuichi. How can I help in your current investigation?” 

That’s right. This is no time for distractions. Whether or not Angie was being honest; whether she was in her right mind at the moment, or came to realize after it was too late, or if she died believing in her delusion, there is still another mystery. One for which he can surely gather strong evidence.

“Can you tell me what you remember immediately before and after the ceiling collapse?”

“Certainly. Before the collapse, I was with everyone in the dining hall for lunch,” Keebo says immediately. “After…” He frowns. “I must have decided to rest in my room. Monokuma’s killing video was already off, so I heard the body discovery announcement, then went to the library.”

“I didn’t realize you could get amnesia.” Keebo grimaces, but Shuichi quickly presses on. “Do you have any video or image memory? Like the pictures you printed for the shine?”

“Please hold on a moment.” Keebo holds a hand to his ear and lets his eyes go wide. “Nothing,” he sighs. “I suppose my eyes stopped recording along with my memory.”

“Isn’t that… a little unusual? You’re sure there’s nothing your eyes recorded that your memory didn't?”

“I apologize, Shuichi. All I ‘see’ is having breakfast in the dining hall. The recording starts up again in my room at night.”

“Thank you, Keebo. That was really helpful.”

Helpful, but suspicious. Shuichi also remembers that the ceiling collapsed at lunch, but Keebo didn’t _see_ lunch; he only _saw_ breakfast. It begs the question of what Keebo and the rest of them were doing in the time between the recorded events, and why his video skipped over the hours before and after the collapse.

The other oddity is the music. Shuichi recalls the night in question with a dream-like quality. He was exhausted, and when he finally snapped out of it, the music was off and he and Kaede raced to the basement to find Rantaro dead. Keebo’s account confirmed that the music had stopped by the time he was back in his room, or at least, once his video started recording again. Keebo didn’t seem as puzzled by it as Shuichi.

Shuichi ducks into an empty classroom and appends the new information:

_Fact: everyone was at breakfast (corroborated by Keebo & Shuichi) _

_Fact: everyone was dispersed throughout the academy when the body discovery announcement was made at night (corroborated by everyone’s accounts during the investigation of Rantaro’s murder)_

_Question: when did the music shut off?_

_Question: what happened between breakfast and finding Rantaro?_

He hesitates, then adds one more:

_Question: can Keebo’s account be fully trusted?_

No one remembers, but perhaps it’s a good thing that Shuichi has learned not to trust his memories. It might have been a stretch once, but not anymore. Something besides the ceiling collapsing happened during that period.

His time is cut short by a static voice on the speakers calling them to the gymnasium. Shuichi tightens his grip on the papers before tucking them away and steeling himself to face the next motive.

* * *

The gym has divided itself. Closer to the front, Kaito, Maki, and the rest. Lingering towards the back, Shuichi, Kokichi, and his group. How awful that even in his mind, Shuichi delineates them like this. 

Kaito deliberately stands in the way and doesn’t allow Shuichi any closer. Maki nearly growls. Kirumi’s face is blank. Tsumugi is furious. Ryoma and Miu look off to the side. Tenko is near tears. 

It’s not long before the headmaster and the kubs appear near the stage. 

“You know, I’m disappointed!” Monokuma sings. “We went through all that trouble of preparing this beautiful academy life for you, and some of you don’t want to see it! Aren’t you curious? Keebo, don’t you want to access your lab to upgrade yourself? Shuichi, wouldn’t it be helpful to use yours for that research you love so much?”

“I am perfectly happy as I am, thank you,” Keebo declares.

Shuichi prefers not to respond.

“Well, whatever. Kids, show them the goods!”

Monophanie proudly holds up two items, declaring them to be the legendary Levistone and the priceless Octobrush. Shuichi’s not sure about the stone, but the brush might be used to paint the scroll on the fourth floor. Monophanie passes the items to Monotaro. “And, it’s a card key! Which just so happen to be the next motive!”

Kaito whirls on Shuichi. “Now listen up! We have to take this seriously. No more trying to avoid exploring the academy—we need everything we can get! No more trying to hide from new motives—we need to face them head on!”

“Oh, Kaito.” Kokichi sighs and grabs his wrist behind his back. “Now is _exactly_ the time not to take this seriously! Right, Shuichi?”

“Don’t answer that, Shuichi,” Kaito snaps, “I don’t wanna hear from you. You’re just confused.”

“You’re the one who’s confused.” Kokichi takes a deliberate step in front of Shuichi and taps his fingers in a quick staccato rhythm. “Me and Shuichi have an understanding. An itty bitty agreement. But nevermind that. I just want to say that I’ll be the one to ruin you.” He taps the rhythm faster. “Not _you_ in particular, Kaito, unless you’re the brains behind this operation! No. I want the one controlling Monokuma. And to get to them, I’m going to play this game to the best of my ability. I don’t take orders from anyone. I will never run.”

‘Kill me,’ he’s saying to the mastermind. ‘I dare you.’

Kokichi rocks back on his heels, then puts one foot behind the other. Shuichi does the same. “That being said, I will run. Just this once. Hiyahhhh!” 

He breaks for the stage with Shuichi right behind him, ignoring the cries of their classmates and shrugging off the attempts for them to stop. Kokichi swipes the card key, and Shuichi the two items, then they flee from the room.

Shuichi can never go back. Not to the way things were when they first arrived in this gym, all sixteen of them innocent and unified. He clutches the items to his chest and bursts through the front doors, someone hot on his heels but he won’t turn around. Forward is the only way now. They need to understand the mastermind and the motives, but they cannot be naive. These items are nothing but a trap, fueling a hopeless belief that they must kill to survive.

He runs until his legs take him to the woods behind the academy where he hunkers down under a bush. The shouts and curses never reach him. Only their echo, carrying on the breeze their hate and betrayal. 

Shuichi remains hidden until the sun dips below the horizon. He wonders how Keebo, Himiko, and Kiyo are getting on. Hopefully the others don’t gang up on them. They weren’t any part of this; this was his and Kokichi’s actions alone. He wonders if Kokichi got away. Probably. He won’t let anyone catch him unless he wants to be caught.

When his legs go numb and his stomach rumbles, Shuichi makes his way back to the campus. As the casino and the Kumasutra hotel come into view, he sets a course. Monokuma and the mastermind have access to these locations too, but searching individually would take too long. Even if someone does find the items, Shuichi wants to make retrieval as unpleasant as possible.

The levistone, he leaves in the garbage can of a random hotel room. He doesn’t look too closely at the mysterious tissues inside. The octobrush, he dumps into the toilet bowl of the mediocre bathroom in the casino.

His stomach loudly protests when he returns to his room instead of the dining hall. He’ll go before the nighttime announcement. Showing his face now would be a bad idea when he’s got a part to play. Shuichi will never let his friends fall into another one of the mastermind’s traps. He’ll be who he needs to be, even if he doesn’t recognize himself anymore.

* * *

Later that night, there’s a knock on his door. Then, three quick ones. And then, Shuichi starts hallucinating—he never did make it to the dining hall before it closed—because he swears he hears a cat.

“Okay, fine,” comes a muffled voice. One he knows. Trusts? “It’s just me. Let me in!”

Shuichi complies, and Kokichi ducks under his arm, and he’s reminded of a similar scene at eight fifteen in the morning, the day after Angie and Kiyo killed Gonta. He comes back to the present when Kokichi snaps his fingers. “I get that you’re trying to be cautious, but what if I was being chased? Would you have left me outside to get beaten?”

 _“Were_ you being chased?”

“I was earlier! Kaito nearly caught me, but I guess my fist slipped into his stomach first.” Poor Kaito. Kokichi does look a little worse for wear, so Kaito probably landed a hit back. “So! What have you been up to today! Haven’t seen you around and everyone is right pissed at our little double team act.”

“Been in hiding.”

Kokichi tosses him a granola bar. “Well, I had an interesting conversation with Miu a little while ago. She’s offered us an olive branch!”

“And what did you exchange for that olive branch?”

“You doubt me? I’m wounded! I only insulted her until she couldn’t take it anymore. Don’t tell, but she had a few good insults, too.” Shuichi supposes that’s some sort of compliment. “Anyway, she told me that she’s been fixing up that computer on the fourth floor. She wants to share.”

This olive branch likely came from someone else. A show of good faith. Trade Miu’s knowledge for the keys and motive he and Kokichi stole. The question is, is there a trap hidden beneath the good intentions?

Kokichi pulls at Shuichi’s hand that subconsciously crept over his face. “Thoughts? It’s harder to read you with your hand in the way.”

Shuichi supposes that’s some sort of compliment, too. In a way. 

“I’m hesitant,” he says. “We don’t know anything about this computer except what Miu tells us. But if they are willing to offer an olive branch, it might be a chance for civil conversation where keys and motives are not involved.”

“There’s our fearless leader!” Kokichi pushes another granola bar in Shuichi’s direction. “Now eat up and let’s go!”

* * *

Miu instructs them to sit in the plush chairs that circle the room. “Some ground rules,” she says. “First, after you’re in, you have to wait thirty minutes before logging out. Your brain needs time to adjust to the virtual world. If you try and leave early, it’ll turn to scrambled eggs.

“Second, you use the phone in the salon to come out. Third, things inside are unbreakable, so do whatever you want. Four, plug the cords in the right way.” She taps the headsets. “Red is right. Blue is left. Got all that?” Shuichi nods. “Good. Now don’t do anything stupid without me.”

“You’re not joining us?” Shuichi asks carefully. “It would be good to have a guide.”

“Fuck that. I’ve done my part. I’m out.” She brushes her hands together, as if washing them clean, then shuts the door as she leaves. Shuichi gets up and locks it. 

“That won’t be enough to stop someone, you know,” Kokichi observes. “Not if they _really_ wanna get in.” Shuichi pushes an extra armchair in front of the door. “Now you’re learning. Slowly.”

“This is a bad idea, Kokichi. If Miu had come with us, then it would seem more like a truce. But encouraging us to go alone…?”

“Don’t tell me my distrustful nature is rubbing off on the untouchable detective?” Kokichi pats Shuichi’s arm. “It’s fiiine. Plus, you’ve already protected us by blocking the door. You can double check, but I don’t think anyone else is in here.” 

The only place in the room to hide is a closet near the back, but it’s stacked with equipment, no classmates lying in wait. Shuichi sighs and returns to the chairs, while Kokichi takes a crumpled piece of paper from his pocket.

“What’s that?” Shuichi tries to grab it but Kokichi snatches it away.

“A prayer.”

“To yourself? That’s the only person you believe in, after all.”

“Aww, Shuichi is finally biting back!” Kokichi settles the visor over his head, and gives him a thumbs up. “See you on the other side, partner!” The device whirls and Kokichi’s hand slips down by his side, limp, but still clutching the paper firmly in the other hand. 

Despite his curiosity about the note, Shuichi can’t afford any time. Kokichi forced his hand on that; he knew Shuichi would worry about something dangerous waiting for them the moment they come to life inside the program. Which is exactly why Shuichi quickly snaps the visor in place and clicks on the device, so that Kokichi isn’t caught off guard alone.

And in that brief instant before his eyes and ears and the rest of his senses are rewired and turned over to the whims of the program, one last sound is registered from the real world. One he hardly has time to process, but it very well might be the last thing he ever hears, in this world or the other: it’s the unmistakable sound of furniture scraping across the hard floor, and someone entering the room.

  
  



	6. Episode 3.2: Equality and Selfishness in a Time of Distrust and Harmony

* * *

After his senses reconstruct themselves from the ones and zeros of virtual space, Shuichi comes face to face with a pixelated room, where instead of armchairs and a computer, he sees plush sofas and lavish rugs. The graphics aren’t what he was expecting—not that Miu had promised much—but the novelty of the environment and his tiny avatar body wear off fast when his brain registers the noise he heard as his consciousness was fading.

The rotary phone is in his hand before he knows it, but Kokichi immediately smacks it away. “Miu said thirty minutes!” 

“Ouch!”

“Whoops. That hurt?”

Shuichi examines his fingers. They don’t look red, but they do sting. “I guess it did.”

“Well. Better a little pain than you getting your brains fried, yeah?”

“Yes, but before I synced in, I heard—”

“I like you just the way you are, 16-bit and all!” Kokichi flicks the piece of hair that always stands up on Shuichi’s head; it’s hugely exaggerated.

“But, I heard—”

“Don’t be a buzzkill, Shuichi. Isn’t this awesome?” Kokichi’s eyes dance around the room. “An entire world where we can do whatever we want with no consequences. No supervision. Doesn’t that sound exciting? I wanna play, so let’s stay awhile and explore!”

The noise Shuichi heard could have only been one thing: entry into the computer room. And it leaves them with two equally bad options. Log out to protect their real bodies from the room invader, and risk brain damage. Or remain inside to protect their minds, and risk… 

He doesn’t really want to think about who entered the room and why. But whoever and whatever the reason, he and Kokichi are vulnerable so long as they’re inside the program. It might be harmless enough, like a classmate coming to negotiate a truce— _but why wait until they’re inside?_ —yet, Shuichi can’t shake the feeling that something was off before they synced. About Miu, in particular. She didn’t say who this olive branch came from or what they would find, but she was extremely nervous. Said she had ‘done her part’ and left the room like she wanted nothing more to do with it.

An impatient tapping draws his attention back to the virtual room. “Come on, Shuichi, keep up! It’s not hard to move. Just think about going, and you’ll go! You already figured out how to pick stuff up.”

_…Wait._

"Here,” Kokichi sighs. “I’ll help.” He circles behind and pushes Shuichi out into the foyer.

 _Something_ else _is off._

The fact that Shuichi heard movement in the room just before syncing might not be relevant if the trap was already inside the program. Something he would never suspect. Perhaps some _one_ who took advantage of Shuichi’s tiredness and naivety to isolate him in a place where he can’t fight back or escape.

No. He can’t think like that. He can’t possibly know Kokichi’s intentions or why he doesn’t care about what Shuichi has to say. Just because Miu was anxious before they entered the virtual world, doesn’t mean she knew something bad was coming. Similarly, just because Kokichi isn’t taking more precautions about the two of them being here alone or securing the entrance before logging in, doesn’t mean he is planning anything, either.

Shuichi has to trust. But whether he trusts in his emotions or in his deductions… that’s another story.

Kokichi grins as he latches onto Shuichi’s arm. “Come on. Let’s have some fun.”

Thirty minutes on the clock, and Shuichi is trapped with nothing to do but wait and play along.

* * *

The world outside is bright, cold, devoid of much to do. They emerge from the mansion and walk next door to a chapel, cross a bridge and pass by a forest, then find themselves back at the mansion again. Is this really all there is to the virtual world? No secret passageways or enemies lying in wait? No hidden chests with treasure inside?

While Shuichi is cautiously observing the environment, Kokichi is actively engaging with it. He stomps on the ground with an expression that expects a reaction, but the snow in their virtual landscape barely reacts. “Aww, I wanted to make snow angels,” he pouts. “Mine would have been so cute and small!”

“We’re actually both the same size,” Shuichi reminds him.

“You’re right! Yours would be small too. No fair, you’re already cute enough.”

Shuichi crouches down, pretending to examine the snow. Fortunately, it doesn’t feel like his face is heating up; their avatars are only so lifelike, it seems. “Is that really your concern?” he deflects. “Not, ‘why don’t we make footprints in the first place’, or ‘what are the implications of such a fact?’”

“Hmph. You didn’t have to come after me if you didn’t want to play.”

“Of course I did.”

“Then lighten up! You’re not acting very much like my knight in shining armor, you know.”

Shuichi runs a hand experimentally over the ground, although the word ‘hand’ is being generous. His fingers are basically five extensions from an oversized sphere he can wave and wiggle. When he wants to pick something up, like the phone earlier, it’s enough to bring his fingers close, and the object snaps into his grasp. He tries it again with the snow, tilting his hands to form a haphazard ball between them.

For whatever reason, Kokichi is uninterested in spinning hypotheticals and theorizing about the oddities in this world or in the real one, and Shuichi will have to accept it. He knows a lost cause when he sees one. Pushing the subject will only push Kokichi further out of reach, and if they are ever to meet in the same place, Shuichi needs to stay close and minimize the gap as much as he can. For the sake of the investigation, of course. There is too much at stake for him to get distracted, but Kokichi has a penchant for just that; he pulls people inside his orbit at his leisure, and then distracts the hell out of them until they forget why they came or what they were going to do in the first place.

Not that Shuichi really minds being pulled. But he intends to push back a little himself. “A knight, is it?” He hurls the snowball at Kokichi’s back and has another at the ready when Kokichi spins around. “You should know I’m nothing of the sort.”

* * *

The forest is quiet as Shuichi stalks through. He’s lucky his footprints don’t give him away, but moving his little avatar legs produces an unusual noise, so he has to time it right. Also working against him is his speed. He’s slow, his early morning jogs not reflective of his increased stamina at all. Add to that his dark clothes against the snowy white backdrop. As a result, his movements have to be well calculated. It puts him at a disadvantage.

A snowball flies inches from his face, but he doesn’t react. Not yet. A taunting voice follows. “Come out, come out, wherever you are! You can’t escape me, Shuichi. I will find you.”

Shuichi sidles around the nearest tree, then jumps to another under the cover of rustling leaves as he inches away from danger and towards the safety of the chapel.

“Aren’t you done playing games?” Kokichi calls. “That’s not your style. Just give up. I’ll be gentle in my punishment. Promise.”

Only one tree left standing between Shuichi and the wide expanse of the field. Careful. Move too soon, and Kokichi will be ready. Delay too long, and it’ll be just bad. Know your opponent well enough to predict their actions. Kokichi is anything but predictable, but Shuichi draws from his intuition and from a feeling that he knows what outcome they both want to achieve here. 

A snowball hits the tree above his head, and Shuichi leaps from the shelter of the forest and runs as fast as his legs will take him, Kokichi right behind, but he didn’t stop to reload after his last throw so the race becomes one speed and stamina, both of which are equalized in the virtual realm. It’s no surprise when Shuichi touches the chapel wall moments before Kokichi does.

“Daaaang! I almost had you!” Kokichi scuffs his heel on the ground. “Okay, okay. I admit, I might have met my match in tag.”

Shuichi smiles in victory. When he woke up that morning determined to get answers from his classmates about the ceiling collapse, never did he expect he would later steal from the very same classmates, hide in a bush all afternoon, and then end up embattled in a digital snowball fight.

No, it’s not the unusual circumstances—that’s almost par for the course these days—this is, different. It’s almost… fun, with no strings or schemes attached. The stark contrast between his deadly life and this whimsical virtual world must be what unnerved Shuichi when they first logged in. Kokichi was already planning to enjoy himself while Shuichi was still holding tight to his usual suspicions. 

And he has to admit, seeing Kokichi like this and leaving behind the lies of the academy is a welcome relief. One he never expected to come from the little liar himself.

Still, he wonders what brought about Kokichi’s sudden change of demeanor. He wonders how long it will last, and then he buries the thought deep.

“Come on, let’s take a break,” Kokichi suggests. “Do they have any water or snacks? You can’t tell from my avatar, but I’m out of breath.”

“Maybe you should join me on my morning runs,” Shuichi says. “I’ll give you a gold star if you beat me.”

“Don’t get too smug. I might start liking you even more.”

“And that’s a bad thing?”

It’s weird. Shuichi knows that this is the same person he’s met outside in the real world. He knows Kokichi can see through his avatar’s eyes and has full control over his mouth as well as Shuichi does. But there’s still a disconnect. It’s as if they aren’t really standing here side by side in front of a chapel. Not really saying these words or playing these games, because it’s _easier_ in here. Easier to pretend, easier to speak. Easier to forget, and to simply exist.

“Not necessarily,” Kokichi says with a smirk as he opens the chapel door to continue their exploration. It slips from his grasp before he sets foot inside. 

“Are you okay?”

“Fine, perfectly fine!” Kokichi giggles, rubbing his thumb against his index finger and sounding more hysterical than fine. Shuichi grabs his hand, but there aren’t any obvious marks when he looks. A splinter? A bug bite?

Shuichi is about to ask again, but Kokichi’s knees buckle and he crumples to the ground.

“Kokichi, what’s wrong?”

But Kokichi just laughs, and laughs, and rubs his finger and his leg, seemingly helpless to control himself, looking up at the sky and slurring words that become incomprehensible when mixed in with his wild laughter as Shuichi looks on and kneels next to him.

“Get a hold of yourself!”

The laughter soon turns into rasps, then gasps for air, and start to come slower and deeper and more regular. Shuichi runs his hands along Kokichi’s back as Kokichi lays slumped against him, a new sensation, and even newer in their avatar bodies, but it’s the best he can offer as Kokichi relaxes into the motions and closes his eyes.

He doesn’t know how long they stay like that. Shuichi doesn’t pay attention to the passage of time anymore because time stopped the moment Kokichi collapsed. Actually, it was already running slow from back when Shuichi threw the first snowball and he fell into an unfamiliar pattern and realized how deep he’d already fallen since that night he sat beside Kokichi in the courtyard.

Kokichi opens his eyes and looks up at him, and time almost shatters. “Thanks, Shuichi. All better now.”

“O-Okay.”

“Now that that’s over with, let’s do something else.” Kokichi gets to his feet. “Let’s talk about murder.”

They enter the chapel together, and time once again resumes.

* * *

“Hey, hey! We should make a code.”

“A code?”

“Yeah! You know, a secret language for just the two of us? Every secret organization has one, including mine. Oh, but we can’t use theirs. It has to be specially made.”

“Why do we need a secret language?”

“Umm, cause it’s fun?”

Shuichi won’t deny the appeal in crafting a hidden language. It’s like trying to unravel a mystery in reverse, raveling it _a priori_ for someone else to decode later. “What are we encoding?”

“Knowledge.”

After Kokichi recovered from his collapse, and subsequently redirected the conversation towards how they could use the virtual world to kill, while flatly refusing to answer any of Shuichi’s questions about what that was all about, they poked around the chapel and found party hats, ornaments, wrapping paper, and strands of metallic stars. They then devised three separate murder plots using various combinaions of each.

‘So we can be prepared to counter it,’ Kokichi had justified, but Shuichi was a willing participant. Sometimes he thinks they might be too curious for their own good. It would be hard to explain to their classmates that it was simply an intellectual challenge and nothing nefarious.

Kokichi reaches for the box with the spherical ornaments and lays several on the church bench. “So, there are three levels of information: yellow, orange, and red. Let’s code them as numbers cause it’s easier: three, two, and one, where one is the most important. For example.” He picks two ornaments. “If Kirumi is giving me a lecture and you pass by, I’ll snap my fingers twice. That means you have to help me escape.” He chucks the balls at Shuichi.

“You probably deserve a lecture from Kirumi. Downgrade it to three.”

Kokichi throws a third. “Probably. Okay, let’s do another. If I slip a note under your door with one dot on it, and then later, Kaito asks where I am… Do. _Not._ Tell him.”

Shuichi can only imagine why Kaito would be looking for Kokichi—other than their recent misadventures with the card key and mysterious items—but something probably involving stealing slippers or, god forbid, shaving a goatee. “Yeah, I’ve got it. But that only works with context. How do we provide our own?”

“Let’s see… if it’s a snap or a wink or a tap, it’s for fun. If it’s on paper, it’s serious. If it’s something to do with fabric, it’s romantic.” He bats his eyes as if it were nothing and everything. “And if it’s in blood, it’s death.”

“That will set the _tone,_ yes, but we need the _context,_ ” Shuichi stresses. “As in, ‘what happened,’ ‘who was involved,’ and ‘what do I want you to do about it?’”

“Exactly what kind of context are you imagining, Shuichi?”

The glee is evident in Kokichi’s eyes as Shuichi explains the context and the circumstances he envisions a code like this being utilized given their present scenario. It’s brilliant. It’s foolproof. And he prays that they will never have to use what he devised here, because it would mean the end of everything.

* * *

“Our thirty minutes are up. Wanna go back?”

“We didn’t learn anything new, though. I still don’t see the point of this olive branch.”

Kokichi shrugs. “Eh. I think it went better than expected.”

The world turns dark as Shuichi is pulled back into reality, and he finds that it is not the same reality as when he left. The chair blocking the door has been slightly moved, although the door itself has been reclosed. A sheet of paper lays crumpled at Kokichi’s feet, and blood drips from his fingertip. Shuichi untangles himself from the headset and cables, and notices a dirty shoe print on Kokichi’s pristine white pant leg.

Kokichi gasps as he startles back into consciousness, and Shuichi snatches the paper off the floor before Kokichi can hide it again.

“Don’t get mad,” Kokichi says, and Shuichi immediately knows that he will be.

Shuichi reads the note out loud, and with muted enthusiasm: “‘Hello killer. Smiley face. If you’re reading this, that means you’re here to kill me. I strongly recommend against it. Check your wrist against your memory. While you’re at it, check my wrist against your memory, too.’”

He pauses, noting Kokichi’s rolled-up sleeve, revealing the mostly healed cut and faint bruises. Kokichi fiddles with the headset in his lap instead of meeting Shuichi’s accusatory eyes.

“‘P.S. To acknowledge receipt of this note and your consideration of my offer to exchange information, prick my finger so I don’t get too anxious wondering what you’re thinking. Don’t rough me up too badly. I’ve got a pretty face. From, Kokichi Oma.’”

“So she kicks me instead!” Kokichi laughs. “Takes things kinda literally, eh? What’s with that face, Shuichi? Anger is a new look for you. Whoa, aren’t you a bit close?”

He doesn’t know what comes over him. The fact that he’s got full control over his limbs and facial expression again after emerging from the virtual world? The note itself, in which Kokichi invited someone to kill him? His own powerlessness over the whole situation? Shuichi _knew_ something was off with Kokichi from the moment they entered the virtual world, but he disregarded his intuition and fell for Kokichi’s lie, which was apparently to get himself killed while Shuichi stood idly by. Kokichi predicted the actions of their opponents and Shuichi’s inaction and then some. He’s so far ahead, while Shuichi is merely shuffling along behind, just like with Kaede. 

Whatever the reason, Shuichi’s got the paper clenched in his fist and both arms braced on either side of Kokichi’s chair. “Don’t treat your life as if it were a bargaining chip.”

“I don’t think anything of the sort.” Kokichi pushes a finger against Shuichi’s chest. “I’m so much more. In this game, I am the king.”

Shuichi leans in closer. “You obviously have a death wish. Don’t do it again.”

“Oh? You think you can tell me what to do?” Kokichi narrows his eyes. “I can do whatever I want.”

A challenge appears in his eyes and his voice, but Shuichi’s too upset to react in any other way than breath in Kokichi’s air. “Your actions affect other people.”

“You know I don’t care about other people,” Kokichi purrs. He twists his fingers into Shuichi’s jacket pocket.

“I can tell when you lie to yourself, and when you lie to others, Kokichi. This time, for some reason, you’re lying for my benefit.”

“Hmm. And are you doing _this_ for mine? Or yours.” 

Shuichi follows Kokichi’s eyes as they flicker down at the way the two of them are pressed together with Shuichi boxing Kokichi into the chair with his arms and legs. How Kokichi’s hand is tangled in Shuichi’s jacket. How they are both holding their breath, waiting for the other to bend or break, if they dare.

Shuichi pushes away from the chair. Kokichi’s hand falls to the side.

“I’m sure we’ll continue this later,” Kokichi says. Shuichi knows it too; he’s barely in control of himself anymore. “In the meantime, let’s go see an assassin about a shoe print and a wrist. You ready?”

* * *

Maki’s lab is filled with knives and guns and other weapons whose purpose Shuichi can only speculate. After a particular kris catches his eye, he focuses elsewhere. Kokichi runs up to the shooting range. “I see you got my message.” He waggles his pricked finger at one of the targets. 

“Yes, and you obviously got mine.” Maki pointedly looks at Kokichi’s leg.

“Yep. I’m glad we understand each other so well.” He turns his finger towards Shuichi. “You’re up, partner.”

“What do I tell her?”

“Everything.”

‘Everything’, means ‘definitely _not_ everything.’ Shuichi starts by telling Maki about Kokichi’s unusual cut and bruises—though he withholds their glasses interpretation—and that they occurred sometime around the ceiling collapse. He doesn’t mention his hat.

“Why bring this to me now?” Maki asks. “What do your bruised wrist and my broken one have to do with each other? And don’t think I’ve forgiven either of you for your actions at the trial and this morning.”

“I want a truce,” Shuichi says. “And I’d like to start by sharing information.” Maki scowls but nods for him to continue. Well, since Kokichi didn’t give Shuichi the primer on what this visit was all about, he thinks fast and posits one interpretation. “In his note, Kokichi mentioned your wrists as being unusual considering the events we remember from the ceiling collapse. Our initial assumption was that yours was a normal injury, but now that we know you’re the Ultimate Assassin, it seems less likely that you would allow yourself to be exposed to danger so easily.”

“The ceiling fell on me, Shuichi. I couldn’t have predicted that.”

“I saw you move through the shadows when you were chasing me earlier. A little ceiling rubble wouldn’t stop you.”

“You obviously wanted to talk,” Kokichi chimes in, “or else you would’ve killed me when you had the chance, right? So let’s talk. Don’t you think you owe me that much?” He shakes his pricked finger as a reminder.

Maki purses her lips, then sighs. “I know wrists,” she says. “I know how to break them to hide the fact that it was intentional. I know what accidents look like, and how to break them to inflict pain.” She holds out hers. “Someone broke my wrist on purpose.”

“Ohhh, so you knew it was weird all along. Huh. I didn’t think you were selfish enough to withhold important info. Waiting for the right opportunity to get a few more of us killed?”

“I don’t know what it means,” she snaps. “It’s possible that someone was pulling me out of the way, or that my wrist was stuck and needed to be broken. Intention doesn’t necessarily indicate maliciousness.” 

“I think… you didn’t tell anyone because you were scared.” Maki’s eyes flash to Shuichi, but with the pieces coming together and all here in the same room, he refuses to speak gently anymore. “You didn’t know who to trust with this information,” he continues. “But now you have us. We’re all uneasy about what the next motive will be. We have no way to predict what the mastermind is plotting, but this division is not helping. You went to kill Kokichi today, but instead, you reached out to talk. Let this be the start of us working together against the mastermind.”

He can’t imagine what drove Maki to consider taking such an action—and he doesn’t want to ask—but with Maki talking and sharing information, it seems more and more likely that she was manipulated by the mastermind. She wasn’t completely convinced, or else Shuichi would be investigating a murder right now. She gave them a chance. He has to return the favor, no matter how sick to his stomach the alternative scenario makes him.

“There’s something else unusual I heard,” Maki says. “From Tenko.” 

“Bring her. We have nothing to lose from cooperation.”

_Not until the mastermind discovers our plan and tries to have us killed again._

“‘Bring her,’” Kokichi mimics after Maki leaves. “Wow, you sound so cool, Shuichi. You’ve sure come a long way from day one.”

Shuichi shrugs, but knows the only reason he got here was on the graves of his friends.

When the door opens again, Maki steps inside with more people than promised: Tenko, Himiko, and Miu. 

“I heard that Maki was holding Shuichi and Kokichi hostage,” Himiko drawls. “I came to save you guys.”

“Not hostage,” Tenko defends. “She would never do something so low. Right, Maki?”

“Not hostage,” Maki confirms.

Tenko keeps looking towards Himiko, and Shuichi figures they haven’t reconciled yet. As if aware of it herself, Tenko says, “I… I’m sorry I yelled at you yesterday, Himiko. It’s obvious how strong a mage you are if you’re willing to open your heart to someone like Kiyo. I’ll never forgive him, but I’ll try harder too.” 

Himiko smiles and pats Tenko’s arm. “It’s okay, Tenko. None of this is easy. But we’ll both try harder.”

“Awww how sweet!” Kokichi coos, then turns to Miu. “Your turn! I’m ready for your apology.”

“For what?” she asks, nervously. 

“For setting me up to be killed!”

“What?!” Tenko and Himiko stare with open mouths, but the fact that Kokichi didn’t name Maki as the agent, shows that he’s more joking than trying to sow discord. Mostly. Miu was probably also an unwilling participant in the mastermind’s plot. She might not have known the full details—might not even have known that murder was the ultimate goal—but if Shuichi is willing to give Maki a chance and she actually almost _did_ kill Kokichi, he should also extend the same opportunity to Miu. 

“It’s nothing. We’re fine,” Shuichi says, even though his skin crawls. “Thank you for showing us the virtual world, Miu. It was…” Truth be told, it wasn’t all that bad. Aside from the deception, Shuichi spent all that time with Kokichi playing tag and making a code with him. Holding him. And after logging out, trapping him in a chair close enough that Shuichi could see himself reflected in Kokichi’s vibrant eyes. “...Enlightening.”

He clears his throat and turns to face the gathered group. “Kokichi and I apologize for stealing the card key and mysterious prizes without consulting everyone. We’ll return them tomorrow. But we’re here tonight because of the unusual things we’ve noticed about ourselves, right? Tenko, why don’t you go first.”

She pulls out a handful of little black hair ties from her pocket, along with larger white ribbons that bring back memories of butterflies that once danced in her hair in Gonta’s lab. “It doesn’t look like much, but there are a bunch of these in my closet along with my uniforms.” She flips her short pigtail around her finger. “I only use two hair ties at a time. I certainly don’t need as many as I’ve been given. And I’ve never worn these white loopy ones.”

Shuichi is reminded of the butterfly drawing next to Tenko’s name on Kokichi’s whiteboard, and of his own questioning of the sunspots in the group photo at the shrine. 

_Don’t jump to conclusions,_ he tells himself. _Start by gathering the information. Deductions come later._

Kokichi again shares the story of his wrist, and Shuichi again excludes mentioning the hat.

“Himiko, do you have anything unusual to add about your clothes or wounds from the ceiling collapse?”

“Nope. My magic protects me forever and ever. But Tsumugi did get a black eye. Whenever I ask her if she was okay, she always gets real upset.”

“Don’t forget about Angie’s knuckles,” Tenko adds. “She told me she probably scraped her hand as she was moving debris, but it looked to me as if she punched something. And of course, Gonta’s head wound. Something must have smacked him right in the temple.”

Not necessarily new information, but information all the same.

“Miu?”

“I’m only here cause I guess I feel bad about… you know.” Fortunately, Kokichi shrugs in possible acceptance of her half-spoken apology. “But since we’re all sharing our sob stories,” she rolls up her sleeves to reveal her scratches. “I got these from ceiling debris.”

Maki abruptly grabs her arms.

“H-Hey, what—?”

“These are nail marks,” Maki observes, turning Miu’s arms over. “Healed now, but the pattern, the distance between each cut, the depth. This was undeniably made from another person.”

“Maybe someone scratched me as they were helping me out?”

Maki gently wraps her hands around Miu’s forearms and asks her to quickly pull away. They all watch how Maki’s fingers perfectly follow the pattern of the scratches.

“No memory of anyone grabbing you like that?”

Miu shivers. “No. Do you think… someone tried to hurt me?”

“Let’s save the speculation for when we’re all gathered together,” Shuichi interjects. “We can’t afford any more secrets amongst ourselves.” 

The only person who could have deliberately hurt Miu and Maki and forced him and Kokichi to leave strange messages… Shuichi has no doubt the mastermind was involved in the ceiling collapse in some way, but it would be dangerous to speculate without all the students present. If the mastermind found out they were onto them before they were ready for a confrontation, it could mean the end. 

For the first time, Shuichi has an advantage, and he intends to keep it. 

“Tomorrow morning after breakfast, let’s all meet in the gym,” he proposes. “We’ll bring the card key and mysterious items.” He sends Kokichi a pointed look, and fortunately Kokichi doesn’t make a fuss; he’s just as curious as to how the pieces will fit and what they will reveal. “Together, the twelve of us will discuss the irregularities we’ve found and solve this mystery.”

Everyone agrees, and Shuichi feels the end finally approaching. 

“Don’t go back on your promise, Shuichi,” Maki warns. “We may be agreeable, Kirumi and Ryoma probably will be too, but they’re still upset by your actions. They want to leave the past motives and Kiyo behind, and move forward with a clean slate. Don’t mess this up.”

“It’ll be fiiine,” Kokichi answers. “We wouldn’t _dream_ of going back on a promise!” He yawns, and Shuichi feels the fatigue of the day catching up with him, too. “Speaking of dreams, I’m tired. Shuichi, come tuck me into bed.”

They part ways with the others for the night, and Shuichi follows Kokichi back to his room.

* * *

Kokichi shoves Shuichi inside, then spreads his arms wide. “Welcome to my dominion!” He tosses his scarf to the side, and slips out of his shoes. “Be awed and inspired by the stomping grounds of a supreme leader! Bow down and cower in the presence of a god!”

“You know I’ve been here before, right? We wrote on your white board. That’s my handwriting right over there?”

The door shuts with a click. “Must have slipped my mind.” Kokichi waves a hand. “Even so, that was for business. This is for pleasure.”

“What’s the game?” Shuichi asks.

“Whatever you want it to be.”

 _Dangerous,_ his mind supplies.

“Two truths and a lie,” his mouth says, unable to stop himself from figuring out what Kokichi is up to, while trying to define the edge of lies between the planes of truth. “But with a twist: two lies and a truth.”

“Very interesting… and what happens if you lose a round?”

“The loser has to play truth or dare.”

“Any restrictions?”

“Since the truth part will have already been covered, the loser has to take the dare.”

“Any restrictions?” Kokichi asks again.

“...No restrictions.”

Even more dangerous, but before Shuichi can take it back, or clarify, or even decide if it’s a mistake, Kokichi claps his hands together. “Beautiful. I’ll start.” He hops onto the bed sitting cross-legged, and Shuichi sits near the foot. The last time he was here, he had tripped and Kokichi had cornered him from above. “I hate rain. I love rain. I’m indifferent to rain. Which is the single, solitary true statement about yours truly?”

“Is rain a metaphor for something?”

“You’re totally over analyzing this, Shuichi.”

“Indifferent to rain, maybe. I imagine you like to run through warm showers in the spring, but you probably hate cold rain in the winter. Like a cat.”

“While I disagree with your assessment that I’m a cat, you are correct!” 

_Even though you did meow at me earlier,_ Shuichi thinks. 

“I don’t really care for the rain,” Kokichi goes on. “If it’s there and I’m in the mood, sure. Otherwise, eh.” He leans forward and rests his fist under his chin. “Your turn! Make it good.”

Kokichi had the advantage going first. He could low-ball it. Test the waters. Start out nice and easy and fun. Shuichi knows Kokichi won’t allow that to continue for another round. “I love being a detective. I hate being a detective. I wish I could be something else,” he says.

“Aren’t two of those statements the same?” They might be, but Shuichi doesn’t clarify. “Well, in that case… you obviously love it!”

“You just want to take the dare, don’t you?”

Kokichi shrugs. “Who knows? I got it wrong, didn’t I? I’m ready for my punishment.”

There’s that word again. _Punishment._ Monokuma says it all the time, but coming from Kokichi now and when they were playing tag, it sounds like a challenge. As if _Kokichi_ is the one selecting the dare, even though it’s Shuichi’s choice. 

He sets the bar, and hopes it’s high enough. “I want you to show me the trick for tying one hundred games of rock, paper, scissors.”

“Not my most guarded secret!” Kokichi clutches a hand over his chest. “Shuichi, you know exactly how to strip me bare and expose me, don’t you.”

“Hands up, Kokichi. Let’s rock.”

“…Was that a pun?”

“…Just forget it.”

The trick, apparently, is careful observation of your opponent and a healthy dose of manipulation. Each round is played in isolation, but that doesn’t mean the mental landscape of your opponent remains stagnant. ‘If someone throws rock two times in a row, they probably won’t pick it a third, so be sure to look for that,’ Kokichi explains.

Watching your opponent’s hand can be telling, as well. If the player tucks their thumb, they’re likely preparing to play a rock. If the fist is loose, a paper might be next. Otherwise, scissors. 

The final trick is to get inside your opponent’s head. Poke and prod with questions like ‘are you sure that’s a good idea’ or ‘oh, I bet you’re going to play that again,’ and depending on the response, you use it. Of course, Shuichi knew some of that was going on, but he didn’t anticipate that it was part of the strategy for literally and metaphorically forcing your opponent’s hand. 

“Give me a rematch,” Shuichi says. “Three rounds.”

“But I already did your dare! No fair. You can’t add more willy nilly.”

“This is the culmination of the lesson. Think of it as a… practical test.” Shuichi raises an eyebrow. “Don’t you want to see if I can surprise you?”

That sparks a fire. “Always.”

Kokichi had also said more aggressive people prefer to start with rock. But now Kokichi knows Shuichi knows. How can that be used to his advantage? Would Kokichi assume Shuichi will assume that Kokichi will play paper, assuming Shuichi will throw rock as a way to get ahead? Or will Kokichi assume Shuichi will assume that Kokichi would play rock himself, as a bluff to rebut the rules he just finished laying out. Or maybe he’d play a scissors as a complete left field. 

Is it really up to chance? Kokichi’s hand gives nothing away. The thumb isn’t tucked, his fist is moderately tight, which might be indicative of scissors, but again, Kokichi knows Shuichi knows. 

Shuichi looks at Kokichi’s face next. A carefully controlled smile, ah, but his eye just twitched. A tell? Or another deception. He looks at the rest of Kokichi, sitting with his legs crossed, turned towards Shuichi, leaning back on his hand flat against the bed.

_Well, let’s see what happens._

Shuichi throws down paper.

Kokichi cackles. “Excellent, Shuichi! Again.” He shifts and moves the hand once on the bed to his knee.

_Scissors._

“Alright! Final round! Can you tie me again?”

This time, Shuichi looks at Kokichi’s face. He’s sure Kokichi knows his other tells, conscious or not, were found, and he won’t be as free or loose with his hands anymore. But there in his face, Shuichi observes a brief moment when Kokichi’s mask starts to crumple, like tissue paper. 

Shuichi throws down another paper.

“Yes! Although, to be honest, I’m surprised you matched me on the last one.”

“I guess I know you a little better than you thought.”

They both know that’s a lie, but Shuichi thinks it’s the closest thing to a truth they’ve said all night. 

Kokichi hums and puts a finger to his chin. “I like you. I love you. I hate you.”

“I like you,” Shuichi says immediately, knowing it’s the wrong answer, and feeling his cheeks burn at having been tricked into admitting it himself.

“Come on, you know that’s a lie. I’m obviously a ‘go all the way’ kinda guy.” 

“That’s not what you said before about the rain.”

 _“The_ _rain_ isn’t sitting in front of me on my bed,” Kokichi says. “The truth is, I hate the rain. I was lying before.”

“You always lie, Kokichi.” 

“And you usually see through it, Shuichi. I wonder why you don’t realize it now.” He sighs. “Well. Time for your dare. Close your eyes for twenty seconds and answer my questions. Kay?”

“And what will you be doing?”

“You don’t get to _ask_ questions. Only respond. However you want. Now close ‘em. Count to twenty, then you can look.”

When Shuichi complies, Kokichi’s weight vanishes from the bed. He starts to count in his head.

_One, two, three, four._

He tries not to fidget. He fails miserably. He turns his body and plants both feet firmly on the floor. 

_Five, six, seven, eight._

The lights go out.

 _Nine, ten, eleven, twelve._

Kokichi winces; he must have stubbed his toe on something in the dark. 

_Thirteen, fourteen._

Footsteps approach and stop in front of him.

_Fifteen._

Kokichi’s breath is hot on his face. “It’s not just about the mystery anymore. Right?”

_Sixteen, seventeen._

“No.”

_Eighteen._

“Good.” _Nineteen._ “Show me.”

_Twenty._

He opens his eyes and Kokichi is there, as close as he was in the armchair in the computer room but the roles are reversed with Kokichi above, pressing his forehead down against Shuichi’s, and Shuichi tilting up so that after all the pushing and pulling that’s come to define their existence, they finally meet in the middle. Kokichi grabs the sides of Shuichi’s face, fingers trailing down and along Shuichi’s jaw and the edge of their lips as they press together, while Shuichi wraps his arms around Kokichi’s waist and pulls until Kokichi’s in his lap. His collar comes undone, and Kokichi’s hands slide down his back, as Shuichi tugs up the edges of Kokichi’s fraying shirt and settles his fingers in the belt loops.

Shuichi takes Kokichi with him as he falls backwards onto the bed, holding him close because he’s afraid to face the repercussions of his actions just yet. With the lights off, he can pretend that he has the same anonymity of their avatars in the virtual world. But with Kokichi’s mouth on his, Shuichi can’t fool himself into thinking that this is a simulation or a game, anymore. 

This is very, very real. 

His hands move, having much more reach and sensation than when he held Kokichi in the virtual world. They find every curious part of Kokichi’s clothes, and Kokichi’s sounds encourage him to find more. He complies as if in a daze, all other thoughts pushed far back into his mind, pointless and irrelevant for the time being, but a sharp pressure on his upper lip momentarily  brings him back.

“Did you just…” He tastes blood. “Bite me?” 

Kokichi gazes at him through hooded eyes. “I was rearranging my mouth. Over yours. Your lips just happened to get in the way of my teeth.” He leans back in and sucks on Shuichi’s lip. “There. All better.”

Shuichi touches the bite—Kokichi’s mark. Similar, perhaps, to the one Shuichi left on Kokichi’s wrist, but the circumstances are far from the same. That was a mark from a time they don’t remember. Deliberate, but cryptic, whereas the mark Kokichi left on Shuichi’s mouth… there’s absolutely no doubt what that means. 

But with his shirt now gone and Kokichi losing his belt, Shuichi doesn’t care what the rest of the students will say about it tomorrow. He mumbles Kokichi’s name and is tempted by a reality where things are different; where there’s no academy at all, or even a world where it’s all a game and the thrill comes from the deductions and mysteries they could solve together without the fear of death. If only it were that simple. Shuichi imagines it anyway.

“Hey, Shuichi. What’s the game?”

It takes a moment to register the words. He hears them, but he doesn’t understand. “The what?”

“The game,” Kokichi repeats. He pushes himself up so he’s straddling Shuichi’s hips. “I love to play, but hate when I don’t know the rules.” He traces a finger down the center of Shuichi’s chest. “So?”

“I… don’t know?”

“It’s not like you to be impulsive. Come on. What’s your end here.”

Shuichi has no idea what is happening anymore. “Wasn’t this your idea to begin with?”

“I put the _balls_ in your court,” Kokichi smirks, deliberately looking down at Shuichi’s pants. “But it was your move.” He brushes the sweaty bangs from Shuichi’s eyes. “I just wanna know.”

“I thought you wanted this too.”

“Oh, I’m all for it.”

“Then, can’t we just…” _Stop the inquisition and keep making out?_ “Stay like this and forget about the rest for a while?”

“Forget?” It’s too dark for Shuichi to see, but he hears a bit of puzzlement. Uncertainty. “Ohh, okay. Okay. So I’m a distraction for you.” His voice hardens and deepens. “Just another mystery for you to figure out in addition to the rest of the academy? Another notch in the _belt_ of the ultimate detective?” He slips the belt from Shuichi’s pants.

“N-No, that’s not what I meant—” 

It wasn’t. Not at all. But Kokichi’s not listening. “And how exactly were you planning on measuring that success, hm? When you get me to admit something truthful, like in our little game of two lies and a truth? Well, you got one; first notch, done. What about the next, when you get me to declare my undying love for you? Got that one too.

“But let me tell you something. My words are not enough. It’ll _never_ be enough. Everything I say is a lie. There is no Kokichi Oma without it, so give up. You’ll never understand. Never be satisfied. And eventually, you’ll become frustrated with me, and in turn, I’ll grow bored of you.” Kokichi touches Shuichi’s jaw, just beside the bite. “Not yet. But soon.”

The room falls silent, interrupted no longer by words, only filled with breath as Kokichi waits and Shuichi desperately tries to decipher what brought this on. He comes up short. However, the one thing he knows, is that Kokichi isn’t entirely wrong. Shuichi does want to understand, but with all the time they’ve spent together, he knows he never will. There will always be another mask, another lie, another deception. But another truth too, for each lie masks _something._ Each lie is motivated by an underlying reason, a purpose that makes it necessary in the first place. Whether it’s to poke fun or tick someone off, or is something as fundamentally human as self-preservation. 

Shuichi will never understand Kokichi, but by pushing him away, Kokichi is forcing Shuichi to confront the moment, put him on the spot. Make him deny it or fill his head with doubt with no time to prepare; a basic emotion such as affection begs for a basic, unfiltered response, afterall. 

Yet, Shuichi sees another reason for such a forceful confrontation: Kokichi is giving Shuichi a way out, if he wants it. If he doesn’t want to play the game or be involved anymore. _This_ is their reality, not something decorated or imagined. There’s no escape or wishful thinking. Only the present. It’s sad and painful, but Shuichi takes it, only because he thinks Kokichi needs it more than he does.

“What are you doing, Shuichi?”

There are so many responses he could give. So many words he could pick and choose to try to explain what he thinks of Kokichi and their relationship, of himself and his own self-doubts and his desire for a connection regardless of the circumstances, or, perhaps, fueled by it. A connection born between the intersecting and intertwining lives of two people, different enough, but able to be.

In the end, he chooses none. He sits up and kisses Kokichi again, gently, before shifting and sliding off the bed. He gets dressed. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

He leaves, and doesn’t know if he’s done the right thing or even understood what was at stake, until he hears a soft murmur of acknowledgement just before the door shuts behind him.

* * *

Shuichi peers into the mirror and runs his tongue over his swollen lips; Kokichi’s bite wasn’t deep, but it left his mouth a puffy purple that’ll take at least a day to fade. His hair is matted down on the side from where he slept on it after his shower. It was nearly 2am, but between running around the school, his virtual world adventures, and all the _other_ activities of the night, he needed it. He slept like a log, after.

He finds Tenko and Himiko loitering in the common area of the dorms. Tenko gives him a withering expression, but fortunately doesn’t comment on his appearance. “Better late than never.”

“I thought we said after breakfast.” He knows he got up late, but not _that_ late.

“I would have at least thought you wanted to be prompt.”

“I’m sure he’s got a plan to make everything better,” Himiko says. “Right, Shuichi?”

While he does have a plan, he can’t be sure it’ll make everything better. He nods anyway. “Did everyone seem receptive to our truce?”

“Ryoma agreed without question,” Tenko says. “Kaito is still frustrated with you, but he realizes that we can’t carry on like this anymore. Tsumugi acquiesced when we said everyone else was on board. She said she’d speak to Kirumi. They’re all anxious, but willing to give you a chance.”

 _Well, that’s a start._ “Have you seen Kokichi yet?”

“No, but you’d better hold him accountable! This is serious business. We have the beginnings of a fragile agreement.”

“We’ll follow through, don’t worry. He probably went to retrieve the card key. I’ll do the same with the mysterious items, then meet everyone in the gym, okay?”

Shuichi heads to the casino, and finds Kokichi poking the buttons on a slot machine. It doesn’t seem like he put in any coins. He turns when Shuichi approaches, and something shared sparks into existence—or maybe it already was, but now it’s burning bright—even if Shuichi doesn’t know exactly what it is, and couldn’t begin to give it a name or substance.

Kokichi hops off his stool. “Looks like you had a little accident last night.” He brushes his own lips to mirror Shuichi’s. “Pretty clumsy. Make sure you don’t leave yourself open. You might get killed.”

“If that happens, I’m confident that you could solve my murder.”

“I guess the feeling’s mutual, if it comes to it.” It’s an odd exchange, sure, but death and deductions are a familiar part of their domain, and the underlying message is one of trust. Even more, it serves as a sort of explanation. Not quite an apology, but a way to compensate for and sooth the doubts and fears and insecurities they both harbour within their minds. It’s what they can provide, the closest their words can come to the truth at this point, as everything else lies bare. 

The moment is acknowledged, and then it passes, filed away but now a part of their foundation. 

“Anyway. You hide your items here?” Kokichi nods to the casino at large.

Until that moment Shuichi, Shuichi had forgotten he’d actually have to _retrieve_ the mysterious items. The hope was that he’d never have to think about them ever again. When he locates the hotel bedroom he selected, he dumps out the trash can filled with questionable tissues before carefully wrapping the levistone in a towel—“you sure put this room to good use, Shuichi. Call me next time,” Kokichi comments—and dons a pair of rubber gloves from a storage closet to retrieve the octobrush he dropped in the toilet tank in the casino.

“Where did you put the key card?”

“Weeeell… we’ll have to take a little detour.”

* * *

“Why am I not surprised.”

Kokichi picks the lock to Shuichi’s room while Shuichi is standing right there. Kokichi doesn’t even bother looking guilty. The card key, he retrieves from under the bloody hat sitting on the shelf.

“When? And if you say while I was sleeping last night, I will not be happy.” 

Kokichi chooses silence. It’s the best decision he’s made in a while.

“Come on. Let’s meet the others.” 

This is their opportunity for unification. A chance to reconcile and reach a common ground. If they can establish some rules or guidelines for handling the motives Monokuma will inevitably continue to throw their way, while simultaneously working towards discovering the mastermind’s identity and the inconsistencies behind their injuries sustained in the ceiling collapse, they’ll be fine. 

_Right?_

“My plan is to start by apologizing. I expect you to do the same,” Shuichi says as they make their way towards the academy. “Then, we can explain the mysteries and oddities we discussed last night. I still won’t mention my hat or our analysis of your wrist, but it should open the doors to… um, Kokichi?” 

Shuichi turns around. Kokichi is no longer walking beside him. He’s back in the entrance hall.

“Something is off about this room,” Kokichi says by way of explanation when Shuichi backtracks. 

“Off?”

“Yeah. I dunno.” Kokichi rubs his arms. “Doesn’t it feel weird?”

“Weird?” But Shuichi is already looking around with heightened senses because never before has he seen Kokichi uncertain like this. He’s seen feints, and bluffs, and jokes, but in the midst of true uncertainty, Kokichi has always had a plan and a mask at the ready. This is something else. 

The entrance hall is the same as always, with the exception of less grass thanks to the cleanup efforts of the Exisals. Above, the ceiling is vaulted and the morning sunlight filters through the closed skylight. A chilly breeze floats by despite the tightly shut front door. To the right is the hallway leading to the basement, and to the left, the path to the dining hall. 

They walk around the space, careful, staying apart so that in case of an ambush, one can run for help. As Kokichi passes from one side of the hall to the other, the breeze abruptly stops. Shuichi snaps his fingers and instructs Kokichi to walk around while he stands at different locations. He complies without question until Shuichi finds it; a spot where the wind can be blocked. It’s source is in the ground, a stone slightly out of place. It comes away easily. 

“Worn out?” Kokichi asks.

“I don’t think so.” Shuichi runs a finger along the side. “See how the edges have been ground away? And there’s dust piled around it. Indicative of being moved in and out recently.” He reaches into the newly opened space. “There’s something here. If I can… just…” His fingers brush something movable, and with an audible click, the stones around them begin to tremble. Kokichi grabs Shuichi’s waist and shuffles backwards as the ground in the center of the hall shakes and collapses. When the dust settles, they find a staircase going down. 

Rendezvous with the others? Call for help? No. There is no question of what they will do next.

It’s cold below the school. The walls of the corridor are exposed rock, the path itself carved directly into the stone. They navigate around the corners in silence, the chill and the thrill of the unknown driving them forward. The potential to uncover a secret of the mastermind before its time, ripe at their fingertips. 

A circular door stands tall at the end of the passage, engraved with a red logo and an eagle perched above the ledge.

Kokichi steps forward. “My lab.” 

“Will it open without a mysterious item?”

“We got down here without one, didn’t we?” He places his hands on the door. “Are you ready, Shuichi. Are you ready to find out what the mastermind is trying to hide from us?”

Behind the door is Kokichi’s Ultimate Research Lab. It’s a cavernous space, illuminated with green and blue neon lights from shelves adorned with masks and handcuffs. The word ‘DICE’ is prominently displayed on the back wall, along with the logo and a red and white face. Off to the side sits a yellow sports car and a little hovering drone.

And there, seated upon the throne at the top of a short flight of stairs, is the lifeless body of Kirumi Tojo.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you everyone for reading! <3 (This fic is now my highest word count, woo!)


	7. Episode 3.3: Equality and Selfishness in a Time of Distrust and Harmony

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was very challenging to write, but I'm happy with how it turned out :) 
> 
> A big thanks to Lodi (SomewhereFlying on [AO3](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SomewhereFlying) and [twitter](https://twitter.com/somewhereflying)) for helping me talk through some things and recognize that sometimes, less is more <3

* * *

**Equality and Selfishness in a Time of Distrust and Harmony**

**[Deadly Life]**

Kirumi Tojo. The Ultimate Maid. A kind soul whose duty and desire saw to selflessly caring for others. Whose empathy and sensitivity to suffering lead to her illness in the aftermath of the ceiling collapse. It turns out that her care for others wasn’t enough; she was still found dead in a secret room, killed by a wound in her stomach.

“What was the motive this time?”

It’s not the harsh tone of Kokochi’s voice splitting the silence that gives Shuichi pause. It’s not even that Kokichi isn’t taking a moment to mourn the death of their friend before jumping straight into the investigation. No, it’s the fact that Shuichi’s mind went to the same cruel place— _what was the motive this time_ —before giving sympathy a consideration.

What a bitter thought, how hardened this killing game has made him. At the beginning after Rantaro, he could barely stand on his feet. Couldn’t, in fact. After Gonta, he had to work hard to force everything down. But now, as he approaches Kirumi’s body on the throne, it’s already been pushed down, the impulse to scream and cry, because Shuichi knows this is something only he can do. Kirumi deserves more, but in order to give everyone else the chance to survive, Shuichi must solve this mystery. No matter how much it leaves him shattered and broken.

Kirumi sits carefully, almost regally, in an intimidation of life. Her back is straight, feet planted firmly, and arms folded across her lap. Her eyes are closed. The front of her uniform is slashed and bloodied.

“The fatal wound appears to be here, in her abdomen,” Shuichi says, kneeling beside her. “Her gloves are covered in blood, but there’s no visible injury there. Instead, it’s likely she tried to apply pressure to her stomach.”

“If she had time to do that, do you think she saw her killer?” Kokichi keeps his voice level, but Shuichi can hear the disgust mixed with the curiosity. “Do you think she saw something that someone didn’t want her to see?”

Shuichi knows not to jump to conclusions. Yet, he does allow himself to question the discrepancy between the brutality of the murder and how gently she was arranged on the seat, as if the killer was sorry after the fact.

“The blood is completely dry,” Shuichi goes on. “And her face is very pale. Lips are blue.” He touches the inside of her wrist under the bloody glove. “She’s extremely cold. I can’t approximate a time of death.” He looks again at the wound and at her face, seeing something not quite right, but not knowing exactly how to place it.

Kokichi takes the switchblade from his pocket, and compares the size and shape against her wound. “She was found in my lab, but not killed with my weapon,” he muses. “If this is supposed to be a setup, it’s a pretty poor one.”

“What do you mean?”

“Isn’t it obvious? Wasn’t that your immediate hunch? Why else would she be here.” Kokichi gestures to the room around them. “Unless…” He narrows his eyes. “You have your doubts about me. Unless, you think I really _did_ do this.”

Shuichi hesitates, remembering the virtual world. Then, he was suspicious of Kokichi’s seemingly uncaring attitude and actions, but Shuichi had brushed that aside as his own overreaction. And it was, in a way, but only because everything turned out alright. But still, it showed that despite their partnership and all they’ve been through, Kokichi operates on his own level. He’ll never tell Shuichi everything.

Is that uncertainty enough to warrant suspicion here and now, knowing that the two of them were together for nearly every hour of the night before? Kokichi has tiptoed far towards the cliff, even dangled his own life over the edge, but he has never pushed anyone else over it.

Kokichi pulls at Shuichi’s hand that drifted towards his face. “It’s fine. Means I’ve taught you well.” He almost smiles. “Don’t forget that the people we think we know can do unexpected things.” He nods towards the throne. “This is our reminder of that.”

They return their attention to the investigation, but Shuichi can’t shake the feeling that Kokichi is planning something again.

“Did you see this?” Kokichi uses his knife to pull something away from the edge of the wound, something not part of Kirumi’s outfit. “Purple-reddish threads of fabric. Stained with blood.”

“A cloth used as a bandage?”

“What, and then removed to let her bleed out? What’s the point in that?”

“Maybe they tried to slow the bleeding. As an act of kindness.”

“There’s nothing kind about it, Shuichi. They watched her die, then took the bandage away and left her without telling anyone."

Shuichi rolls the colored thread between his fingers, not knowing what to make of it.

They don’t find the murder weapon, and neither are knowledgeable enough to make assumptions, except that it wasn’t the knife Kokichi keeps on him. They don’t find the cloth bandage, either. And from the position of Kirumi’s body and lack of blood on the throne, they conclude that she wasn’t killed in Kokichi’s lab, unless the culprit cleaned up immaculately.

“The Monokuma announcement hasn’t gone off yet,” Shuichi observes.

“When they come, shit’s gonna hit the fan. They’re gonna make me their number one suspect.”

“And I’m sure you won’t do anything to add to their suspicion.” At this point, the words are more of form than function.

“Me? Never.” Kokichi flashes a grin. “But if I did, you’d help me, yeah?”

Shuichi reluctantly nods.

“No questions asked!” Kokichi snaps. “If I need something from you, you do it. And if I have other things to take care of, you’ll let me go, then explain to our classmates why they shouldn’t pursue me.” He steps closer, head tilted up, and places his hand against Shuichi’s side, using it as leverage to lift himself higher and dominate Shuichi’s sight and mind. “Yeah?”

Shuichi nods again.

“Good.” Kokichi lingers a moment longer in Shuichi’s orbit before dropping his heels back down to the ground. He arranges his face into an expression meant to portray calm and control. “Good. Now, go and get the others. I’ll wait here.”

They both know it’s a lie, but Shuichi complies, because when it comes to Kokichi, he just can’t help himself anymore.

* * *

Shuichi arrives at the gym well past the agreed upon time for their morning truce. Kaito is not happy. “Damnit, Shuichi, you said you _and_ Kokichi would be here!”

Keebo holds out his arms in a placating gesture. “I’m sure there is a perfectly good explanation,” he says. “Go on, Shuichi. Please tell us.”

The room looks similar to how it did the day before. Was it only one day? When Monokuma and the kubz offered mysterious items and a motive in exchange for another death? The gym had been divided then too, Shuichi, Kokichi, Keebo, and Himiko standing with Kiyo at the back because they recognized that something more had to be done with him than simply locking him away and pretending like it didn’t matter. 

Nothing is as it seems. Kiyo said as much when he recounted the story of his sister’s physical presence in the academy. Impossible, yet Shuichi believes it was more than a shared delusion between him and Angie, in the same way he believes there is more to Kirumi’s death than simply another motive, especially since they were about to reconcile. But the truth is so tightly wrapped around the mastermind’s finger that Shuichi can’t move to unravel it until he can first make them bend.

This will be the start of it.

Shuichi takes a step towards his friends. “Everyone, follow me.”

“Hold on. Shouldn’t we wait for Kirumi?”

Shuichi suppresses a chill, taking little comfort in the knowledge that his emotions haven’t completely abandoned him despite the mask he now wears. “Follow me,” he says again, and walks away, knowing they will follow.

* * *

Helplessness takes hold when they enter Kokichi’s lab. Ryoma rushes forward, but is stopped by Himiko’s gentle hand, and they turn into each other while Tenko places her arms around both their shoulders. Miu and Keebo retreat back into the hall with Kiyo, unable to stand the sight, and Tsumugi clenches her fists, words tumbling quickly and softly from her mouth—“not yet… too soon….”

The Monokuma announcement goes off, and Maki and Kaito receive the file while Shuichi blends into the background. He circles the room until he reaches the yellow sports car in the corner, and peers at a note that wasn’t there before: ‘Kick 16 out. Alone.’ One dot on the paper. _Serious._ Shuichi shoves the note into his pocket, then returns his attention to the discussion.

“The details are sparse,” Maki is saying. “The Monokuma file doesn’t include the murder weapon or time of death. Only that she was killed before this morning.”

“There have to be clues somewhere,” Shuichi forces himself to say, taking control of the situation so he can do as he was asked without arousing suspicion. “Since we don’t know how much time we’ll have before the trial, we can cover more ground if we split up. Maki, why don’t you take Tenko to yours and Gonta’s lab to check for missing or used implements. Kiyo and Himiko, take a look at yours and Angie’s. Tsumugi, Keebo, and Ryoma can cover the basement and the entrance hall. Miu, check out your lab. Kaito and I will stay here.”

“Wait.” Tsumugi looks around. “Where’s Kokichi?”

“He and I found Kirumi together,” Shuichi says. “When I came to get you all, I sent him to the casino and hotel to get a head start on the search.” 

_Not bad,_ Kokichi’s voice praises in his head. _Your lies are getting better._

“It’s not a bad plan,” Kaito agrees. “Listen up, everyone. This isn’t how the morning was supposed to go. We were supposed to meet for a truce. But the only way we can move forward, the only way we’ve _ever_ been able to move forward, is by believing in everyone.” Kaito’s bravado falters when his gaze lands on Shuichi.

But Shuichi doesn’t blink. “Right. Let’s get to work.”

* * *

“So you really were on your way to the gym with Kokichi this morning…” Kaito sighs. “Sorry, man. I shouldn’t have doubted you.”

After everyone left to conduct their own investigation, Kaito brooded in the back of the room until Shuichi pointedly asked what was wrong.

“I can understand wanting to figure things out with Kiyo and all,” he continues, “but if we’re always being held back by what’s been done, then how can we move on and live to the fullest?”

Kaito is the type of person who looks forward. Forward and upward, towards the sky, his dreams. The future. Meanwhile, Shuichi is the type who looks down. Down at the ground for clues, and backwards over his shoulder to criticize and dissect the past. 

Even so, Shuichi places the stolen levistone and octobrush on the table to deliver on his part of the truce, then holds out his hand, and Kaito takes it, both knowing they need each other and the rest of their friends in order to finally end the killing game.

“Did you and Kokichi find any clues before you got us?”

“No.” 

_Liar,_ Kokichi’s voice taunts, while Shuichi resists the urge to reach into his pocket for the purple-red thread he hid there.

Kaito nods. “Not much going for us, huh. How do you think she got down here? I know when I was chasing you and Kokichi yesterday, there wasn’t a hole in the ground.”

“We opened the passage this morning,” Shuichi says, then explains the strange feeling Kokichi got from the entrance hall, and how they found the gap in the floor. “We thought it might lead to a clue to the mastermind.”

“I thought you said no more exploring and playing into the mastermind’s hands,” Kaito scoffs.

“...I thought this would be different.” Shuichi looks sadly at Kirumi. “We can’t keep going through this again. It’s ripping us apart. We have to be united in everything, and trust each other one hundred percent.”

 _Hypocrite,_ the thread and the note sing.

Kaito gently punches him in the shoulder. “I know, man. We’ve got this.”

They continue to search the lab until the first group returns.

“Nothing out of place in the basement,” Ryoma reports with Keebo and Tsumugi. “But none of us know when the stairs to this room opened. We all came to breakfast through the shortcut in the dining hall, not the main entrance to the academy.”

Shuichi repeats his explanation of when he and Kokichi found the room, and Kaito repeats how he found it closed yesterday afternoon.

“So he must have killed Kirumi just before Shuichi came to get us.”

Tsumugi’s voice is so confident that Shuichi almost misses it. “You think you know who the killer is already?”

“Yes,” she says, matter of factly. “It’s Kokichi.”

No one immediately contradicts her, evidence of the sliver of doubt already lingering within their minds despite their attempt at a truce. “We haven’t found any evidence that points to him,” Shuichi counters. “It’s too early to make accusations.”

“Although it does seem convenient that Kokichi didn’t come with Shuichi to the gym this morning,” Keebo reluctantly admits. “But I can’t imagine why Shuichi would lie about opening the passage together, or the timing of it. Or about sending Kokichi off to investigate on his own. We should continue to collect evidence and sort it out at the trial.”

They agree, but Shuichi knows things will only get worse the more evidence they do, or don’t, find.

Himiko and Kiyo return next. “All clear on the fourth floor, boss.”

“Indeed, no blood, nor weapons,” Kiyo confirms. “With the exception of my katana, of course.”

Kaito’s eyes widen. “A katana?”

“We made sure it wasn’t used,” Himiko adds. “It’s been in a sealed case since Kiyo’s lab opened.”

“How can you be sure? Maybe it was washed.” 

Kiyo sighs. _“It_ may have been washed, but unless you found gold flecks on Kirumi’s body, my katana was not used.”

 _Not gold flecks, no, and not a purple-red thread either._ This time, Shuichi can hear Kokichi laughing along with the thread.

They share the results of their investigations with each other, and Ryoma asks if Himiko has any insights into when the passage to the lab was opened.

“The last time I was there was last night when me, and Tenko, and Maki, and Miu were coming back to the dorms.” She pauses for a moment, remembering. “It was after the nighttime announcement, but the entrance hall looked normal.”

“What were you all doing together so late at night in the first place?” Keebo asks.

“We were talking about our injuries and our clothes. That’s what we were gonna talk about this morning, too.”

Kaito frowns. “Clothes? What about clothes?”

“It doesn’t matter anymore.” Himiko looks away from the throne. "It wouldn’t help Kirumi now.”

Maki and Tenko return with no leads on the murder weapon, but with an assortment of potential candidates. Maki holds up different sized knives and sharp objects to Kirumi’s wound, shaking her head after each examination. She doesn’t immediately stand when she finishes, and Shuichi watches as she pulls out the knife she keeps secured under her skirt.

“Can someone read back the Monokuma file to me?” Maki asks.

Shuichi gets to it first. “‘The victim is the Ultimate Maid, Kirumi Tojo,” he reads. “The victim’s body was discovered in the Ultimate Supreme Leader’s lab. The cause of death was a deep wound to the abdomen. She was killed before this morning.’”

Maki pushes the bloodied fabric aside to examine the wound more closely. She purses her lips and looks up at Kirumi’s face, then turns to Shuichi, but before Maki can finish speaking his name, realization is hitting him like a supercharged current that spreads across his body, searing into his skin, and clouding over his mind; thoughts rolling onto one another, mixing and blending into a perfect harmony of deduction, certainly plausible if not improbable. 

Kirumi’s body. 

The weapon. 

The thread, the location. 

_When—_

“Ah, you didn’t find anything, did you, Maki?” Shuichi recovers quickly to speak over her. “I know, we still don’t have any leads. But I’m sure that something will reveal itself during the trial, at the critical moment.”

Shuichi doesn’t back down when she glares at him. This is a truth that he will protect until it must be shared.

Eventually Maki shrugs and stands to one side of the room as Kaito takes her place. “What was that all about? She didn’t look very happy with you.”

Shuichi feels breathless. “She doesn’t think the weapon came from her lab.”

Before Kaito can ask more, Monokuma’s voice calls over the loudspeaker, announcing the start of the trial.

“What are we going to do?” Keebo asks. “We seem to be out of options.”

Out of options, out of time. Hardly any clues to the culprit, except for one big question mark and a revolution that could upend everything they think they know. Shuichi wonders if Kokichi saw the cracks in the facade before he ran off. It’s a pointless hypothetical, because if Kokichi had, he would have withheld it. They must come to their own conclusions, independent of each other; that is the only way they’ll know if this truth is the one they truly seek.

Shuichi follows his classmates down the corridor, armed with the sparse clues from the investigation, with what the facts say, and with what he can see with his own eyes. It’s not much, but this time, he thinks it will be enough.

* * *

Shuichi reviews the facts from his investigation, both those he shared with his classmates, and those he withheld.

 _Condition of the body:_ Kirumi was found stabbed once in the stomach. Death was quick, but did not appear to be instant. Her body was extremely cold, and the blood was completely dried.

 _Location of the body:_ Kirumi was found seated on the throne in the Ultimate Supreme Leader’s research lab. The lab was opened by Shuichi and Kokichi that morning, just before the discovery. There was no blood in Kokichi’s lab. 

_Thread near the wound:_ Small bits of purple-red thread were found near the wound. Possibly from a cloth used to bind it. The cloth was not found. Shuichi hid this clue from the others.

 _Monokuma announcement:_ The Monokuma announcement did not go off when Kokichi and Shuichi found the body.

 _Kokichi’s absence:_ Kokichi went off on his own after finding the body. He asked Shuichi to cover for him, and to make number 16 leave alone.

 _Monokuma File #3:_ Victim: Kirumi Tojo. Time of death: before morning. Cause of death: a deep wound to the abdomen.

 _Shuichi’s account:_ According to Shuichi, he and Kokichi opened a secret passage in the academy entrance hall the morning of the discovery. None of the other students went to the dining hall for breakfast via the front doors, so the exact time the stairs appeared cannot be corroborated.

 _Himiko’s account:_ Himiko attested that the passage was closed when she, Tenko, Maki, and Miu left the academy last night after the nighttime announcement.

 _Murder weapon from Kiyo’s lab:_ The only possible object that could be used as a weapon was a golden katana. Kiyo claims it leaves bits of gold dust when touched.

 _Murder weapon from Maki’s lab:_ An assortment of objects could have been used as a weapon, but she rejected the ones she brought back with her. 

_What Maki knows:_ Maki appeared to learn something when she examined Kirumi’s body. Shuichi told her to wait to reveal it.

This trial is different from the last two. The mastermind is breaking the rules and forcing Shuichi to break a few himself. Yet no mystery is unsolvable. Death has come again and again, but Shuichi will take up the mask of a liar and fake it until he can finally give rest to all those who died, blackened or victim, from this killing game.

* * *

Kokichi and Miu are waiting in front of the trial grounds. Shuichi rushes to speak before either can utter a greeting. “Ah, Kokichi. Did you find anything in the casino or hotel?” 

Kokichi’s eyes shine. “Nope. Nothing at all.”

“I am glad you’re finally joining us,” Keebo says. “We have several questions for you.” 

“And I’m sure I’m happy to answer everything!” Kokichi winks twice, but Shuichi briefly pulls out the paper note and taps it once. Kokichi sighs, then lets himself be surrounded by the others and their questions.

Shuichi holds Miu back. “Did you find any clues in your lab?”

“W-What!?” She twirls a strand of hair around her finger. “Nothing out of the ordinary…”

It’s impossible to question Miu about what business Kokichi had with her without blowing his cover. It’ll have to wait until after the trial.

They once again descend in the elevator, and Monokuma laughs as they take their places. On impulse, Shuichi scrunches up the purple-red thread in his fingers, and nudges Kokichi as he passes. Kokichi takes his hand and squeezes, the touch lingering until it’s gone, and the thread with it. 

Shuichi recalls Kokichi’s warmth from the night before. How sure Kokichi’s hands were as they teased and challenged and moved throughout the games the two of them played together. He compares it to how they felt just now, clammy and stiff. Uncertain. Clinging almost desperately to his own.

He tries to catch Kokichi’s eye, but Kokichi refuses, confirming Shuichi’s earlier assumption and marking the fact that something is very, very wrong.

* * *

**[Class Trial, In Session]**

They start with the location of the body, the newly opened Ultimate Supreme Leader’s research lab, and within minutes, the first contradiction becomes immediately apparent: the Monokuma file said Kirumi was killed before the morning, but the room she was found in wasn’t opened _until_ the morning. The question then becomes two: _when_ and _how_ did she get into Kokichi’s lab. 

“We know from Shuichi’s account that the lab was opened this morning,” Keebo says. “And that he and Kokichi found Kirumi already inside. It is difficult to imagine the culprit sneaking past, moments before their arrival.”

“And there wasn’t any backdoor or secret entrance,” Kaito adds. “Me and Shuichi checked. There was no other way in or out.”

“S-So, are we stuck already?”

They bemoan their luck and argue over what little evidence they have, until someone speaks louder than the rest. 

“The only explanation is that Kokichi and Shuichi are lying.” Tsumugi’s words burn in Shuichi’s ears. “The passage was already opened when they found it.”

Kokichi gasps. “Lying? Not our Ultimate Detective! In fact, I think he’s allergic to lies. His face turns a lovely shade of red if he does.” He winks. “I should know. I’ve seen it up close.”

“Maybe not Shuichi, then,” Tsumugi pushes on, determined and ignoring Kokichi’s attempt at a distraction despite the scandalous gasp from someone else in the trial grounds. “But you aren’t the best of influences.”

“I’m hurt!”

“We’ve seen what you’ve done to Shuichi,” she spits. “How you’ve manipulated him. How you’ve brainwashed him—”

“Um, is this relevant to Kirumi’s case?” Keebo asks. Tsumugi blinks, then rubs her arms, and offers nothing more. “Besides, what would either of them gain by lying about finding and opening the passage in the morning?”

The implication and accusation hangs within grasp, but they decide to give Shuichi and Kokichi the benefit of the doubt; the trial has only just begun.

Ryoma continues the discussion. “We should confirm Shuichi’s account anyway. All of us who gathered in the gym this morning came directly from the dining hall. And we all got there from the courtyard, not through the main entrance.”

“Well, Himiko, Miu, Maki and I can say that the passage was closed last night when we left the academy,” Tenko recalls. “It was definitely after nighttime, and since the dining hall is locked at night, we could only leave through the front hall.”

“So between when we left the academy last night, and Shuichi coming to the gym this morning, the lab was opened, and Kirumi was put or killed inside,” Maki summarizes.

It’s not a major conclusion, but at least they believe Shuichi and Kokichi’s account. He glances towards Tsumugi. _At least, most of them do._

“That answers the _when,_ sure, but not the _how,”_ Miu huffs. “If there really wasn’t a backdoor, then how did the culprit get inside before the two of them? And actually, how did the two of them even get inside? I thought that only the Monokubz’s crap could open the labs.”

“Were the mysterious objects that Shuichi and Kokichi stole yesterday actually the keys to unlocking the lab?” Kiyo looks guilty after questioning the veracity of Shuichi’s account when he knows how he himself had lied when questioned during the previous case.

“I didn’t check,” Shuichi contributes for the first time, “but the octobrush was probably supposed to be used on the fourth floor to draw on the scroll. The levistone was the other item. I didn’t find any indentations in the entrance hall to fit it, so I think a different mysterious item we didn’t have was required to open Kokichi’s lab. Besides, the items disappear after being used, and I returned both to Kaito this morning.”

“But then, how _did_ you do it?” Tsumugi stresses.

“We felt a draft coming from a gap in the stones. And then I found a mechanism that made the floor collapse.”

Kokichi purses his lips. “So my lab could be opened without a mystery item… does that mean anyone could have waltzed in before us, and cover it up again?”

 _It’s possible,_ everyone agrees, but without evidence of a previous entry, or a way to verify how it could have been opened and closed, the discussion comes to a halt.

And while they considered the _when_ and the _how,_ they never turned towards the other critical question: the _who._ Shuichi keeps that theory to himself for now. Only one person is capable of covering up this crime—the mastermind themself—and Shuichi will expose them by presenting overwhelming evidence to the point where no other possible explanation could be accepted.

* * *

With one avenue of this case at a deadend, Shuichi shifts the focus to discover the others. “Let’s turn to another aspect,” he suggests. He taps his fingers against his podium. “The scene of the crime. Kokichi’s lab was spotless, and Kaito and I didn’t find any signs of a struggle. Did anyone find evidence elsewhere?”

“If the culprit could open and close the passage, cleaning Kokichi’s lab wouldn’t have been difficult,” Tenko offers.

Miu sighs. “Then we don’t have any leads on this either?” 

“Well….” Kokichi holds his hands behind his head in the imitation of innocence. “I didn’t mean to hide it, but I guess I got swept away in the excitement of the trial, and forgot!” His voice becomes serious. “I found something on Kirumi.” 

Kaito’s mouth drops open, clearly realizing that Shuichi lied when he said he didn’t find any clues earlier, but Kokichi jumps back in. “Oh, don’t blame Shuichi! I hid this from him, too.” He pulls the purple-red thread from his pocket.

“That looks like trash,” Tsumugi sniffs, even as Kaito goes stiff. 

Kokichi shrugs. “Maybe. But even trash can serve a purpose. One man’s treasure and all that? I found it near the wound.”

“Could it be part of a bandage?” Keebo asks.

“Very good! I think so too. Oh, but I didn’t find any cloth.” Kokichi holds up his pinky. “Promise.”

“So one of us tried to help her?”

“My understanding is that the Monokuma announcement only sounds after three or more people find a body,” Kiyo reminds them. “However, it went off after Shuichi brought the rest of us to Kirumi, and not sooner.”

“Unless a third party bound the wound and left before she died,” Ryoma suggests. He plays with his candy cigarette, but doesn’t put it in his mouth anymore.

“Death wasn’t instant,” Maki says, “but Kirumi bled out pretty quickly judging from her blood stained gloves. If there was a third party, they were probably at the crime scene alongside the culprit in order to bind the wound and remove the bandage.”

“We’re not…looking at a double murder again, are we?”

“If two people were present when Kirumi died, the announcement would have gone off when Kokichi and I found her,” Shuichi assures. 

“Not if Ko—” Tsumugi shakes her head. “I mean, not if a contraption was used so the culprit didn’t have to be present. Like what Kaede did.”

“A third party would have been counted even if the culprit wasn’t present.” Shuichi can only imagine what Tsumugi was going to imply. _Not if Kokichi was the culprit._ He’s glad Tsumugi decided to offer a different interpretation, though her level of mistrust makes him uneasy. “It therefore seems reasonable to conclude that Kirumi was killed by a single person who bound her wound with a cloth. She could have been killed in Kokichi’s lab, or moved there after, but if a bandage was applied then removed, it’s more likely she was placed in Kokichi’s lab.”

“But then we’re stuck again,” Himiko sighs. “Because we still don’t know how the lab was opened.”

Thus they arrive back at square one, with no additional leads, only questions that bring them round and round. 

Shuichi is not deterred by the impasse. They might not have all the answers, or even the understanding to draw together the pieces to make out the full picture, but after this next push, things will unravel very quickly. The mastermind best be prepared.

“Let’s discuss the murder weapon next,” he says.

“It was not my katana,” Kiyo defends. “As Himiko explained before, it has been locked in my lab this entire time. Furthermore, it would have left golden marks on her body.”

“We didn’t find anything like that,” Kaito agrees.

“Maki went through a lot of options,” Tenko says. “It wasn’t any of them, either.”

Maki smooths her skirt.

“So we’re stuck again?”

“What about the time of death,” Shuichi pushes. “The exact time.”

“We don’t know that either!” Miu spits. “Only that it was before the morning.”

“But, isn’t that a little unusual?”

“What’s unusual about it? It’s stupidly unhelpful. Of course she died before we found her this morning.”

Maki looks nervous.

“It’s so unusual that it might actually be a clue,” Shuichi explains. “Rather than give us a specific window into the crime, it’s _not.”_

_It's time._ The stage has been set. The inconsistencies, the lies, the deception. Shuichi only hopes that Maki will cooperate and that everyone else will give him the opportunity to explain his deduction. His attention drifts to Kokichi. He looks excited.

Shuichi continues to push. “Maki, are you willing to answer some questions?”

She nods.

“They may be… uncomfortable.”

She purses her lips, but nods again.

“You discovered something about the murder weapon, didn’t you.”

“I did.”

“Hold on, you said—” 

“Shh!”

He has to be delicate. Shuichi doesn’t think Maki is the culprit. He has to do everything he can to support her while having her reveal her knowledge. “You found the murder weapon, didn’t you.”

“Yes.”

“You didn’t kill Kirumi, did you?”

“Of course not,” she says angrily. “I was… incapacitated at the time.”

“Ah, so you’ve discovered her approximate time of death, too.”

“...Yes.”

“Tell us.”

She takes a deep breath and closes her eyes. “The murder weapon…” She pats her skirt. “Is the knife I keep on me at all times.” The room starts to murmur, but Shuichi silences them with a hand. “And the time frame…” 

_—the secret of this entire trial; the key to cornering the culprit and exposing the mastermind’s hand if not yet their identity—_

“...is from the beginning of the killing game, until this morning.” Maki’s eyes snap open. “That body has been dead for more than three weeks.”

_I knew it._

“A-Are you serious?!”

“What the hell does that mean!”

“N-No! Kirumi was with us in the gym just yesterday!”

“She’s not a zombie, is she?”

“Was she frozen and placed in some kind of stasis pod?”

“This isn’t your scifi fantasy!”

“Is Maki lying?”

“It’s too outrageous a lie for her to make.”

“But it’s too fucking crazy for us to believe!”

“Did Maki use the weapon herself, or did someone disarm her?”

“Why are you more surprised by that than by the other thing she said?”

Shuichi lets their voices wash over him as the truth sets in. 

Kirumi’s body was cold. Too cold to have been killed the night before. 

The blood was dried. Too dried to have been from the morning. Even the blood they found on Rantaro was only slightly dried, and he had just died. 

The last piece of evidence is Shuichi’s hat. When he and Kokichi were writing on the white board, one of their assumptions was that the two short strips were the deceased, but only Rantaro was dead by then. Commonsense told them otherwise, but this is a long con, orchestrated by the strip covered in blood. The traitor; the mastermind.

It’s a wild deduction. It’s completely crazy given how Kirumi has been walking among them for weeks. Yet, it’s what the evidence points to. And Kiyo and Angie’s encounter with the dead may actually support the insane possibility.

Shuichi begins to explain, and they start to believe.

* * *

“Here’s what we know so far. There are many uncertainties, but they allow us to make certain deductions about this killing game. 

“First, the crime scene. We couldn’t determine the exact location where Kirumi was killed. Regardless of if it was Kokichi’s lab or elsewhere, the culprit completely cleaned up.

“Second, the location of the body. Hidden away in a place no one had been before. Not only was access granted, but it was also covered up again, almost as cleanly as if the Monokubz repaired it. The only reason Kokichi and I found it at all, was because of a single misaligned block that created a draft.

“Third, the thread. The culprit bound Kirumi’s wound, and took the bandage away when they were done. Like the misaligned block, this probably isn’t something the culprit wanted us to find. They were thorough in their clean up of the crime scene, but it wasn’t perfect. 

“Fourth, the murder weapon. We haven’t discussed it much, but if Maki is confident that the weapon is hers, we should believe her. It doesn't make sense that she would outright admit to the crime, given all the other unusual circumstances. And don’t forget, Maki said she herself was incapacitated around the time of Kirumi’s death. Let’s return to that a little later.

“And finally, the timeline. Kirumi dead for more than three weeks when she’s been beside us all this time? Impossible, but the Monokuma file actually supports the possibility. It says, ‘killed before morning.’ Now of course we took that to mean ‘last night’ because we saw Kirumi yesterday, but given Maki’s testimony, we have cause to doubt."

There’s also Shuichi’s hat, marked in the aftermath of the ceiling collapse _three weeks ago,_ but if he takes the time to explain that, he’ll also have to explain why he withheld it for so long. He’ll have to explain the word written in blood, and the connection to the meaning of the mark on Kokichi’s wrist. That would halt the momentum and derail his plan to convince them that this could only be done by the mastermind, regardless of who they are.

He won’t drop it. Every piece of evidence will be presented, and the hat and Kokichi’s mark will be used to identify the mastermind when the discussion reaches a point at which there is no further doubt.

“Thinking back, three weeks ago is when this killing game started, when the ceiling collapsed on us. There are a number of instances where our memories don’t match with our reality. Kokichi’s bruised wrist and Maki’s broken one. Miu’s scratches, symmetrical, along both arms. Tsumugi’s blackeye and Angie’s bloody knuckles. Gonta’s head wound and Tenko’s hair ties.”

“My torn coat sleeve…” Kaito mumbles.

“Used as Kirumi’s bandage,” Shuichi finishes. “Exactly. Taken together, everything adds up. It’s obvious we’re being lied to. That’s what all of these facts and inconsistencies have in common. The question becomes, not _how,_ but _who._ Who has perpetuated the lie this entire time? Who has the means to? There is only one person: the mastermind. Kirumi died a long time ago, and advanced tactics were used to hide that truth from us. Our memories were erased, and the real Kirumi, dead long ago, was replaced.”

“Hold on! This is insane. A replacement? Of a human? Fucking how?” 

“She could have been a robot like Keebo.”

“Kirumi was perfect in every way. Um, no offense Keebo.” 

“None taken… However, I also agree with Miu. This seems to break the bounds of reality, doesn’t it?”

“What about a replica? A duplicate?”

“An imposter?”

Tsumugi slams her hands on her podium. “Just wait! Kirumi was at the second trial with us when Monokuma threatened to kill us if we didn’t attend and vote. How could a dead person be punished?”

“It might have been to keep up appearances,” Maki says. “We don’t know if Monokuma counted _that_ Kirumi as voting or not, but in the end, it wouldn’t have mattered if she didn’t vote. There are no rules about a dead person voting.”

“In the first trial, several people were absent and not penalized,” Ryoma recalls. “Gonta and Maki were excused, because Monokuma said the ‘able bodied and well minded’ people had to attend. He didn’t contest Kirumi’s absence from the trial. We thought it was because she was sick.”

“Little did we know, it was because she was already dead.” 

_It’s impossible,_ they say. _It’s a delusion,_ they want to claim. Speculation about how such a feat was pulled off runs rampant, but given the extent gone into preparing this killing game for them, they agree that if this evidence is correct, then only one person is capable of doing it.

“Who is it? Who is the mastermind?”

Now that they are convinced, Shuichi prepares to explain the final clues and expose the mastermind’s identity. The evidence is still speculative, but given what they now know about Kirumi, Shuichi can think of several instances where _their_ behavior was suspect.

Kokichi beats him to it. “It’s not like they’re just gonna come out and confess,” he states. “We’re gonna have to work harder to corner them. And I know just the thing.” His expression morphs, vicious and victorious, and this time, the mask is real. “Here’s what we know about voting from Kiyo and Angie’s trial. It’s based on a majority. So long as the true blackened receives the high score, it’s fine. They and the other person with top votes will be punished. Yeah?”

Shuichi sees where Kokichi is leading them. Nothing good will come from this. Yet the eyes and attention of the trial grounds are on Kokichi. They hold their breath as they grapple with the choice he lays before them.

“So here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to use the mastermind’s mechanisms against them. Each and every one of us is going to vote for ourselves. If the blackened is among us, we’ll have voted correctly, and we’ll all die.

“But! Here’s what I think.” He taps his finger against his chin to no particular rhythm or code. “I think, from the way the mastermind tries to get us to kill by the rules and motives, wiping our memories and implanting false ones, they wouldn’t let Monokuma punish all of us at once. Could you imagine?” He laughs. “Everyone dying? It’d be a massacre! But that’s only if the blackened is one of us. If they’re not, and we all survive the vote, then Monokuma isn’t playing by the rules anymore. What do you say, Monokuma. Would you kill us all if we’re innocent?”

Monokuma sweats and swears, but doesn’t answer.

“There’s always been a blackened among us, Kokichi,” Shuichi counters. “And if the blackened wants to escape, they’ll vote for someone else. That person will get two votes, the majority vote, and it will be incorrect. All of us will die except for them.”

“Ah! But you’re assuming that this is an ordinary trial!” Kokichi’s mask hardens, but it’s not meant for Shuichi, not in this moment; Kokichi is fighting the mastermind. “All of the evidence you so lovingly laid out shows us otherwise. No ordinary student is capable of this, or else they would have done so from the start. We were on the verge of a truce, too. Why would an ordinary student kill to break that peace?

“Here’s the truth: the blackened is the mastermind. Accept it. And the mastermind is either one of us students, or they’re not.” He shrugs, triumphant, despite having just suggested that every one of them gamble their lives on the flip of a coin. 

“I don’t want to believe that any of us killed Kirumi,” Tenko says, softly. “Kaede was enough. Angie was too much. And now… if Kirumi’s death really was covered up, I don’t want to think one of us has been lying about it this whole time.”

“There’s no way the mastermind is one of us!” Kaito affirms. “We’ve all been trapped in this hell together from the start. We’ve suffered together. We’re all in this together, through the end!”

“And if the mastermind isn’t one of us, then we’ll all receive a single vote all around… is that right?” Keebo asks Kokichi.

“Yep! Because if you’re not the mastermind, then you have no reason to vote for and condemn another innocent person. The vote has always been about self preservation. But because we have no one to accuse, our alternative is to force a draw. A stalemate.”

The sixteen strips in Shuichi’s hat suggest the mastermind is one of them. Kokichi knows this. Why is he leading them to believe otherwise?

“But you can’t discount the other possibility,” Shuichi says. “That the mastermind is one of us.”

Kokichi’s eye twitches but he doesn’t give anything away. “At this point, they have nowhere to go.” He looks down at his nails. “If the mastermind is here, they know we’re onto them. What better way to make that go away than to cooperate? They’ll vote for themselves, like the rest of us. Monokuma will try to kill us, but the mastermind doesn’t want to die! They’ll have Monokuma violate the rules and save everyone to keep the killing game going. And we’ll be none the wiser about their identity.”

“You can’t know that, Kokichi.”

“Neither can you, Shuichi. Unless you have definitive evidence you haven’t shared, you can’t accuse any one of our friends of being the blackened and the mastermind.” Kokichi stares him down, knowing that that evidence is concealed on the inside of his wrist and in Shuichi’s hat. “Hmm? Can you?”

Shuichi is cornered. If he reveals his knowledge of the mastermind being one of them, the mastermind will have the upper hand and immediately put a stop to this attempt to overthrow the killing game with an all-around vote. Going along with Kokichi’s plot and voting for themselves would give the mastermind the opportunity to escape and continue the game by keeping everyone alive. Kokichi’s option gives them hope.

“Well?”

But if Shuichi exposes that the mastermind is one of them, there is no hope; one of them will certainly die. 

He waited too long to reveal the final clues. They are incompatible with their current trajectory, and it would seem like Shuichi is trying to throw the blame onto someone else to avoid the all-around vote. If he reveals his clues, it’s likely that Shuichi would be voted as the blackened.

Kokichi has everybody trapped, including him. 

“No.”

Kokichi touches his scarf. “Yeah, it’d be pretty bad if we didn’t trust each other after everything we’ve been through.”

Ryoma glances around the room. “Can we really trust everyone to vote for themselves?”

“My desire for death is past,” Kiyo answers him. “Though I was complicit in covering up Angie’s crime, I have realized that was…” he trails off, struggling to admit his deadly mistake. “If anything, the compassion shown by some of you has convinced me otherwise.” He nods towards Keebo, Himiko, Kokichi, and Shuichi.

“We still have a lot to discuss,” Maki says. “If this vote will clear up that none of us killed Kirumi, then we can focus on our missing memories and how we can identify the mastermind.”

“If we abstain from voting, the rules say we will be killed,” Keebo says. “However, we can’t be sure if Monokuma would do the same if we tie all around and the blackened isn’t one of us. That situation is not laid out in the rulebook. There’s also the clause that the killing game will continue until only two are left. Killing us if we tie wouldn’t be following any of the rules.”

“Are you really willing to risk your life for this?” Tsumugi asks Kokichi.

“My life is this game,” he says. “Pure and simple.”

Tsumugi’s mouth turns up, and then Kokichi is touching the panel in front of him, and Himiko is confirming from beside him that he’s voted for himself, and it’s all over, because when Tsumugi smiled, satisfied and smug, Shuichi knew without a doubt that they played the wrong hand.

> _Korekiyo Shinguji: 1_
> 
> _Tenko Chabashira: 1_
> 
> _Kirumi Tojo: 0_
> 
> _Maki Harukawa: 1_
> 
> _K1-B0: 1_
> 
> _Gonta Gokuhara: 0_
> 
> _Shuichi Saihara: 1_
> 
> _Tsumugi Shirogane: 0_

They gambled with everything they had.

> _Ryoma Hoshi: 1_
> 
> _Kaito Momota: 1_
> 
> _Himiko Yumeno: 1_
> 
> _Angie Yonaga: 0_
> 
> _Kaede Akamatsu: 0_
> 
> _Rantaro Amami: 0_
> 
> _Miu Iruma: 1_
> 
> _Kokichi Oma: 2_

And the house took it all. 

The lights are cut. The luminescence behind the stained glass, stomped out, nothing more than a facade. An illusion meant to be calming and beautiful and unassuming. A moment later, a spotlight illuminates the central ring of the trial grounds. No one moves. Nobody speaks. Except for—

“You were right. I didn’t clean up enough after myself.” Tsumugi tsks. “You weren’t supposed to find her just yet.”

—the mastermind.

“Kokichi knew…” Miu mumbles. “That’s why he asked me for…”

Shuichi rounds on her. “Asked for what?” A plan? A way out? Why go to Miu and not Shuichi? Hadn’t he always done what he was asked? Done everything that he could?

Miu doesn’t respond. 

“You voted me as the blackened.” Kokichi’s voice is small and mute. Still, he speaks.

Tsumugi’s laughter nearly drowns it out. “All the evidence points to you,” she giggles. “Your lab, your opportunity. But you’ve made things… difficult for me.” She picks up something from behind her podium. “I _will_ have my story. Complete. From start to finish.”

“Wait a minute!”

“What’s going on?”

“N-No! Tsumugi?”

“Are you gonna do it again?” Kokichi asks, still quiet. “Wipe our memories and start over? What about Kirumi?”

Everyone is watching Tsumugi, but Shuichi only has eyes for Kokichi. He looks determined and furious. He looks confident. Scared.

“What _about_ Kirumi?”

“...I see.”

Tsumugi holds something high above her head, and the motion evokes a memory— _your_ memory, of when the One in Glasses stood in the middle of a room, and the One in the Mask pushed you and Yellow and Pink and Purple out the backdoor to escape. The four of you ran together, then separated, and were caught, but not before Pink and Yellow were left with scars from their own encounters.

You don’t know the full extent of what happened in the room, the library—you were trapped in the crossbeam of the light that tried to wipe your memory; your left eye in particular, the one itching with the truth behind the incident—but you had remembered enough at the time to bite a mark into Purple’s wrist revealing the identity of the mastermind. And Purple had seen enough to encode the state of the world into your hat with the knife, and the blood, and the word.

_Pay attention. It’s happening again._

You only have a moment to recall your code and dig your nails deep into your fingertips and bite the inside of your wrist before a rope is coming down and clasping around Purple’s neck. As long as you can remember the significance of your code, you’ll be fine. Purple will be fine. He’ll have a plan. Of course he’ll have a plan. That’s what he was doing earlier with Pink, number 16; ensuring his survival, as he had done before.

Purple always has a plan. That’s why he wrote a note to the would-be killer with a broken wrist and forged an alliance to end the killing game. That’s why he led the class down this path of seeming self-destruction, because it’s not the end. 

He’ll have a plan.

…Won’t he?

You already trust him with your life. Trusted him with it more than once. You wonder if now he’s trusting you with his.

Purple looks back at you, and the answer is clear in his eyes. It’s not the one you wanted.

 _Save me,_ you hoped to see.

 _Solve the mystery,_ instead you find. 

And you comply, just as you always have, even though your heart falters and fragments at your helplessness and Purple’s selflessness and selfishness, and tears blur your vision as you provide the context that was missing from your hat onto the flesh of your fingertips, and—

Shuichi peers into the mirror and runs his tongue over his lips. His eyes are red. His hair wild and unsettled, as were his dreams, but at least his mouth isn’t puffy; the bite from Kokichi must not have been as deep as he first thought. Unfortunately, there’s no time for a shower before he has to meet up with everyone in the gym.

Tenko gives him a withering expression when he emerges into the commons area, but doesn’t comment on his appearance. Only demands that he and Kokichi bring the items they stole. After retrieving the octobrush from the casino, and the levistone from the hotel, Shuichi passes through the entrance hall, reciting what to say in order to reconcile with the others. The room smells faintly of fresh plaster.

He’s only a few minutes late, but the entire class has already assembled. 

Well.

“Damnit, Shuichi, you said you _and_ Kokichi would be here!” Kaito shouts. 

Almost.

“I’m sure there is a perfectly good explanation,” Keebo says.

The inside of his wrist itches.

“Go on, Shuichi. Please tell us.”

His fingertips throb.

“We must not be divided any longer,” Kirumi pleads.

Shuichi looks down, and sees a truth. Not the whole picture—the rest is hidden and obscured within his clenched fists and under the cuff of his jacket—but what’s visible is enough. The truth that drips from his wrist is one of blood.

Blood, which according to his and Kokichi's secret language, means death.

**Equality and Selfishness in a Time of Distrust and Harmony**

**[To Be Continued]**

Deceased

_Rantaro, Kaede, Gonta, Angie_

Surviving Members

_Kirumi, Himiko, Tenko, Kaito, Ryoma,_

_Keebo, Tsumugi, Maki, Kiyo,_

_Miu, Shuichi_

Status Unknown

_Kokichi_


End file.
